


love, can't protect you now

by GretchenMaurice



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Possession, Succubi & Incubi, dungeon delving, spoilers up until the first half of the chroma conclave, when your friend gets charmed and you have to sort out your trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenMaurice/pseuds/GretchenMaurice
Summary: “Sorry,” says Vex, quieter than before. She looks Keyleth up and down. “Are you okay?”Keyleth just stares. Is she okay? How can she be, miles below the ground, after days without seeing the sun, with all the uncertainty and drama and Vex constantly looking at her like—But she doesn’t look like that now. She doesn’t look angry, or distant, or cold. She just looks like Vex. The way Vex used to look at Keyleth.“What happened to us?”
Relationships: Keyleth/Vex'ahlia (Critical Role)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 163





	1. Chapter 1

With every step Vox Machina takes further underground, Keyleth can feel the natural world receding.

She expects to get used to it. She expects to hit a point where everything still feels too dark and too damp, but not so unnerving she wants to crawl out of her own skin.

She finds no such luck.

Keyleth thinks it wouldn’t be so bad if something would just _happen._ But after about forty hours spent traveling deeper into these caves, they’ve found nothing other than a massive rat’s nest and some strange, echoing wails. But the latter had been so faint Grog and Percy couldn’t even hear it, and none of them could find a way to get closer, so there was nothing they could do but keep pressing on.

Forty hours of basically nothing. Not even a fork in the road or some strange obstacle they have to figure out. Just…nothing.

_And we don’t even know if forty hours is accurate_ , Keyleth thinks bitterly. She kicks at a rock and listens to it skitter, echoing, across the floor. Ahead of the group, Vex spins around and narrows her eyes at her.

_Sorry,_ Keyleth mouths. Vex rolls her eyes and turns back around. The movement catches Vax’s eye, and he looks over his shoulder at Keyleth, breaking into a smile.

Keyleth does her best to smile back.

Surely it’s been longer than forty hours. Much, much longer.

Behind her, she can hear Pike and Percy murmuring quietly. Grog makes the occasional impatient grunt, and it echoes too loud through the tunnels. But Vex doesn’t turn around and glare at any of them. Keyleth bites back a sigh and drifts silently over to one of the cavern walls. She reaches out to touch it. Their only source of light is Vax’s flaming dagger, and he took it with him so he and Vex could scout ahead. Even with her dark vision, it’s hard to see the outline of her own hand. When her fingers brush against rock, it almost startles her.

Everything feels colder than it should down her. Cold and damp. She wonders vaguely if any of them are going to get sick from this. She wonders if they’re near an underground water source, or if this place is even natural at all.

“Any ideas?” Percy asks softly. Keyleth looks over to see his hand on Pike’s shoulder as she leads him over. He stares ahead, a soft frown pulling at his features.

Keyleth shakes her head. Then, remembering, “No. I thought we’d have seen something by now.”

“Could we be lost?” Pike asks.

“We haven’t come across any other paths, though.”

“That we know of,” Percy points out. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like it’d be easy to miss a lot of things down here.”

Keyleth gives him a look, only slightly resentful that he can’t see it. He tilts his head, his mouth quirking up, and she thinks maybe he knows she’s doing it anyway.

“ _Kiki?_ ” Vax’s voice comes over the earring. “ _Could you come up here a sec?_ ”

Keyleth adjusts her grip on her staff and carefully makes her way over. Loose rock covers the ground, but she does her best to approach the twins without too much noise.

She finds them standing before a low arch in the rock. Keyleth eyes it as she approaches. It could just be how the rock has shifted and fallen and come together over time. Like every part of the cave they’ve seen so far, there’s no reason to believe it’s anything other than nature. There are no carvings, no smoothed walls or cleared out paths.

But there is _something_ here. They can all feel it, and she feels it even more now. Keyleth stops next to Vax and reaches out until her palm hovers beside the rock. A faint hum of energy tingles against her skin.

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Vex says. Keyleth drops her hand.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Hm.”

Vax touches Keyleth’s shoulder. “What do you make of it?”

“Is it trapped?”

“Not from what we can tell. But you can feel it, right?”

She can. There’s definitely something magical about this space—she just has no idea what. A ward, maybe. Or a door. Or a trap.

Or none of those things. She doesn’t know, she doesn’t even know where to start. But she’s desperate for some kind of answer, so she lowers herself to the ground and places her hand flat against the rock.

It’s still cold. It’s still damp, almost clammy. If she closes her eyes and focuses hard, she thinks she can hear the faint, echoing drip, drip, drip of water. There’s a soft shifting of stone—one of the party behind them, moving restlessly—and a far-off squeak. Bats? More rats? Or her imagination, desperately searching for something to find.

No matter what she hears, it holds no answers. She sighs and pushes herself back up to face Vex and Vax, trying not to look guilty as she does.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “You’re right, it’s weird, but I don’t—”

“Told you,” Vex says, scowling at Vax. She reaches for her earring. “ _Scanlan? Would you come take a look at this?_ ”

There’s a smile in Scanlan’s voice as he responds, “ _I thought you’d never ask._ ”

Keyleth looks between the twins. “I’m sorry, this isn’t—whatever this is isn’t natural, it’s…”

“It’s fine,” Vax assures her. “We don’t know what to make of it either. Vex is just grumpy because I’m the one that caught it.”

Vex glares at him, then at Keyleth just for good measure. Keyleth steps away from both of them and presses herself against the wall to make room for Scanlan. Something wet seeps through her clothes, making them cling to her back. She fights back a shiver and watches Scanlan step up to the arch.

“No physical traps?” he asks.

Vax shakes his head. “Nothing nature-based, either.”

Scanlan rubs his chin and peers at the arch. “Whatever it is, it’s old. And hasn’t been touched for a long time.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Isn’t everything these days?” Scanlan turns back toward them. “Is there any way we can avoid it?”

“Do you see any other paths?” asks Vex. “It’s a one-way street, I’m afraid. Just like the rest of this stupid cave.”

“Keyleth can carve around it,” Vax says.

They all look at her. Keyleth resists the urge to mold herself into the wall and disappear.

“I could. Theoretically.” Keyleth glances at the arch again. “But it would make a lot of noise. And without knowing how this cave was built…”

“So probably not a good idea,” Vex says. “Do we have anything else?”

Scanlan rubs his palms together. “If we’re sure this is the way, I can try to dispel it. Just…maybe stand back a bit.”

Vex’s hand grabs her wrist, urging her back a few feet. Keyleth stumbles with her but doesn’t object. When they’re a few feet away, Vex nocks an arrow and aims it at the arch.

Vax shifts to give Scanlan space, but doesn’t leave his side.

Scanlan rolls his eyes. “Okay, whatever. Here goes nothing.”

His hands move through the air, pulling his usual pink-purple magic into existence. He mutters something, and there’s a flash, and then…

That strange hum of energy recedes—though doesn’t quite disappear—and Keyleth feels something within her relax. Other than that—nothing.

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know,” says Scanlan. “Stick your hand through and find out.”

“Don’t—” Vex starts, but Vax has already shrugged and stuck a dagger underneath the arch.

Nothing happens.

Because nothing has happened this entire damn time.

Keyleth sighs and relaxes her grip on her staff. Beside her, Vex puts her arrow away and marches up to her brother.

“You’re an idiot.”

“It’s safe though.” He winks at her, then turns to beckon Keyleth up. “Come on, Kiki.”

Keyleth hesitates, but then she hears Vex huff, frustrated and indignant. She puts her shoulders back and walks up to Vax. He grins at her and, together, they step through the arch.

Nothing happens.

It’s a long time before she can look at Vex again.

-

They move slowly the rest of the morning. The slippery ground and absolute lack of light make it hard to do anything else. They take pity on Percy after a couple hours and risk lighting a torch. Grog holds it high with a determined grin, daring something to notice it and come running at them.

Nothing does.

With the dim, flickering light of the torch, Keyleth can now see her breath leaving her in misty puffs. She exhales, blowing a trail of fog from her lips.

“Is anyone else cold?”

“It’s a cave,” Percy points out.

“In winter,” adds Scanlan.

“I feel fine,” Grog says, a little too loud. The words hum against the wall, not quite echoing, but not fading as quickly as they would like, either.

“Grog,” Pike whispers.

“What?”

Vex glares at him, then turns toward Keyleth. “What are you getting at, Keyleth?”

But Keyleth is looking at Grog, at the torch flickering in his hand.

“Keyleth?” Vex prompts.

“There’s a breeze.”

“What?”

She points at the torch, then glances around, looking for… “The fire. It shouldn’t be moving that much. We’ve been traveling—what? Three days now? There shouldn’t really be airflow this far down.”

“So there’s a draft,” says Percy.

Keyleth shakes her head, still looking around the walls. She sees no cracks, no small holes or tunnels for a breeze to flow through.

“But there’s not,” she says softly.

The quiet that follows is awkward. She doesn’t look at any of them as they shift their feet or turn away from her. She can only imagine Vex rolling her eyes.

“Well,” Vex says quietly. “You said it yourself. This place is weird.”

It _is_ weird. It’s unnatural, and it’s dark, and it’s too quiet and too damn far from anything green and light and growing. Keyleth feels her throat tighten and sucks in a breath. She shrugs and takes a step away from the party. Let them keep moving. Let them ignore her.

A moment passes, and slowly, everyone starts walking down the tunnel again. Keyleth trails after, stuck in her head, trying to keep her ragged breathing quiet enough that none of the others notice. Ahead, she sees Vex tilt her head and start to turn back toward her—

“Kiki?” It’s Vax’s soft voice beside her, though. It almost makes her jump, but she’s gotten used to his creeping up over the past few weeks. She turns to look at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says hoarsely. She lets out a long, heavy breath and tries again. “I’m okay. It’s just…this place, you know?”

He nods. “What do you think this is? Why is it here?”

_How should I know?_ she wants to ask. But there’s this earnest, honest look in his eyes. Like he thinks she somehow holds all the answers. Like he thinks she’s still amazing even if she doesn’t.

No one else looks at her like that. These days, no one else even really asks her what she thinks.

“I don’t know,” she says yet again, trying to ignore the unwavering adoration in his eyes. Ahead of them, Vex still has her head tilted, listening without quite looking at them. Keyleth tries to ignore that, too. “It…looks natural. But it just doesn’t feel that way.”

“Helpful, dear,” Vex mutters. Keyleth’s cheeks burn, though she said it so quietly no one else seems to have heard.

Still, she scrambles for a better answer. “I mean, it _looks_ like a naturally formed cave. But we haven’t come across _any_ natural life, and we’ve basically been walking in a straight path for two days. I think someone made this, but whoever it was took great care to make it look like any other hole in the ground.”

“But it doesn’t _feel_ like any other hole in the ground,” Vax says. He glances around.

Stalactites hang down around them, sometimes reaching so low Grog has to sidestep them. They shift and shiver in the shadows cast by the torch. Keyleth keeps seeing them move in the corner of her gaze, but…

“Exactly,” Keyleth says, and even she knows it sounds defeated.

“Hey.” Vax touches her shoulder. Keyleth looks over at him—his eyes soft, his voice even softer. He opens his mouth to say something else—

“I don’t think there’s anything here,” says Vex, loud enough now to catch the rest of the party’s attention. “We should keep moving.”

Vax wrinkles his nose. He gives Keyleth another long, unbearably gentle look. Then he’s moving up again, joining Vex at the front of the group.

Keyleth exhales, watching the fog curl and dissipate in front of her face. She thinks she hears Scanlan snicker. She shakes herself and continues after the others.

-

“Hey, Vex?” Grog says after a while—a few hours, maybe, or just a few minutes— “Is it time to stop for lunch yet?”

Vex pauses at the front of the group. She looks at Percy, who shrugs, then at Vax, who does the same.

“Gotta eat sometime,” he says.

Keyleth looks around them. It looks the same as it has all day. Cold walls, damp stone beneath their feet, the torchlight dancing in and out of the rock in a way that makes her stomach twist if she sees it out of the corner of her eyes.

“Maybe not here?” she suggests.

Pike nods. “This place is creepy.”

“And small,” Grog adds.

Pike nods again. “What are the chances we can find somewhere a little more comfortable?”

“Kiki,” Vax says softly, and everyone turns to look at her. “Can you sense _anything_?”

She can’t. She knows even before she tries, though she tries anyway. “Sorry. I—I don’t know.”

“Well, we know behind is useless,” says Percy. Keyleth shoots him a grateful look as everyone’s attention turns to him. “We can keep going for a while, and if we find nothing then we’ll have our answer.”

“We always have the best plans,” Scanlan mutters. But he stretches and starts walking again. “Well? Shall we?”

They keep moving.

But they’re in luck, for once, because not much time passes before the tunnel opens up ahead of them. Vax sticks his arm out, halting Vex and the rest of them.

“Let me take a look first,” he says. Vex crosses her arms over her chest and glares, but she doesn’t stop him.

Keyleth watches him—tries to keep her eyes on him—but it only takes a couple of seconds before he’s completely disappeared, vanishing into shadow. So she looks at Vex instead, watching her watch Vax.

He returns after a minute or so. “I didn’t see anything, just a large cavern.”

“Grog?” Vex asks, and he steps forward with the torch.

Keyleth inches forward, too, watching the flame spill into the cavern ahead. It’s _massive,_ with stalactites so large she can barely make out the ceiling above them. Like the rest of these caves, it’s cold and damp and silent and—most relieving, most unnerving—it’s completely empty.

Scanlan bends to grab a stone from the ground. He reaches back, gives Vex a cautionary glance, then throws it as far into the chamber as he can.

It bounces and clatters, echoing through the cavern. Nothing sounds off in response.

Vex turns on him. “What the fuck, Scanlan?”

He shrugs. “At this point, anything would be better than the silence.”

“Yeah, this place is boring,” says Grog. “Are we eating or what?”

He starts pulling rations out of his bag without waiting for an answer. Pike and Scanlan scout out a slightly less rocky portion of the ground for them to sit. Vex huffs and looks at Vax, who smirks, then at Percy, who holds his hands up. She looks at Keyleth, who turns away and joins the others so she doesn’t have to meet her gaze.

Keyleth stoops and takes some of the food Grog has laid out for them. The meat is dry and the bread is so stale it hurts to chew, but she says nothing about it as she settles down against a stalagmite. She leans back, but the cold quickly seeps through her clothes, so she sits up again instead.

“I just wish we knew what time it was,” Pike says. “Percy?”

He shakes his head. “As soon as we get back to Whitestone, I’m buying or making a watch.”

“I hope everyone’s still alright.” Vex says it so quietly Keyleth isn’t sure the rest of them were meant to hear. But they do, and they all fall quiet at the thought.

Keyleth tears a chunk of her bread and stares at it.

She hears the quiet shifting of stone and looks up to see Vax making his way across their little circle. He passes Vex without looking at her and settles down beside Keyleth instead.

It should be nice, she thinks. Vax’s eyes crinkle into a smile. His hip doesn’t touch hers, but it’s close enough she can feel warmth radiating from him. If she let him, he’d reach out and take her hand, or shift close enough that she could rest her head on his shoulder. If she let him, he’d stay this close every day, every night—curled by her side, holding her tight enough to keep at least some of the pieces together, some of the worries at bay.

She doesn’t let him. Not at lunch, not at night. Not now, when he chooses her side of the circle over his sister’s. Not back then, when he came to her alone and spilled his entire heart before her.

It should be nice. She should enjoy this, enjoy _him._ Instead, all she can feel is Vex’s glare, fixed on Keyleth even though Keyleth can’t bring herself to meet her eyes.

The truth is, she’s still not sure what she feels for Vax. How can she be, when every moment he’s at her side she can only think of Vex? Vax knocks on her door and says he’s in love with her, and Vex is cold and distant the rest of the night. Vax kisses her, and Keyleth watches as Vex flees the room. To find Ripley, she says, but instead they catch up to her with her face buried in Trinket’s scruff.

Vax sits beside her at lunch, and Keyleth can only duck her head and shy away under the weight of Vex’s gaze.

Keyleth is starting to sense a pattern, and she doesn’t like it. In fact, she _hates_ it. She can’t stand it. She can’t stand _them._ Keyleth bites into her bread and chews hard, making her jaw ache. The chill of the rock at her back turns to heat, prickling up the back of her neck. She’s sick of them, all of them. Sick of Vex for glaring, sick of Vax for pushing, sick of the rest of them for laughing about it behind their backs. Just once, just for one day, could they all just _stop_?

She raises her head to say just that. She’s going to do it. She’s going to look up at them all and _snap,_ and they’ll have deserved it. And afterwards when she feels terrible, she’ll have deserved that, too.

She looks up and over at Vex—glaring Vex, cold Vex, Vex, Vex, Vex—and she opens her mouth and—

And Vex is looking the other way.

Keyleth takes in her furrowed brow, her distant look, and feels all the fight leave her in a rush.

“Vex?”

Vex shakes her head a little. “Look—see that?”

She points and Keyleth follows her finger to a nearby portion of the cavern wall. The light from the torch doesn’t quite reach it, but she makes out the gray outline of a small, empty lantern.

Keyleth pushes to her feet. Vex and Vax do too, and the three of them wander over to the wall.

“It’s really old,” Vex says as they get closer. She stands on her toes, but even then she has to look up a bit to see it. “I don’t think anyone’s used it for ages.”

“But someone _has_ used it,” says Keyleth.

“There’s two,” Vax says. He points and, sure enough, a second lantern sits a few feet down the wall, even with the first one.

Vex turns in a slow circle, eyeing the rest of the cavern. “There has to be something else here.”

“Let’s get looking, then.” Vax claps her on the shoulder and heads off.

He beckons to Scanlan and the two of them start walking a perimeter around the cavern. Pike and Percy and Grog rise to their feet, too, packing up the remnants of lunch and slowly panning out to investigate.

Keyleth steps closer one of the lanterns. The metal is old and fading, possibly even rusted shut. But it’s there, hanging from a hook in the wall, a mostly-melted candle shrunken within its frame.

“They used this room for something,” she hears Percy say. “Otherwise why light this place but not the tunnels themselves?”

Keyleth frowns and takes a step back to look at the wall between the lanterns. Out of the corner of her eyes, she can see Vex do the same.

“Do you have a torch?” Vex asks. “Grog has—and Percy—”

Keyleth lights up her hands and raises them to offer a better view. Vex peers at the wall.

“I expected a cave-in, but this looks…flawless.”

Keyleth steps forward again. She reaches one hand out and presses it to the wall. The rock is smooth. Dry.

“Too flawless,” she mutters.

She shakes out her flames and presses both palms flat against the stone instead. It moves beneath her skin, shifting, softening. She pushes through, opening a hole large enough for her arms to fall through.

For a moment, her hands move through empty air. Then there’s a deep rumble, a groan, and she feels the space behind the wall tremble.

“Keyleth!”

Vex’s hand grabs the back of her dress and yanks her away. The two of them stumble back just as rock comes clattering through the opening, breaking the wall even further. For a second the earth just pours through, falling at their feet, but then a large enough stone gets lodged in the hole, plugging it.

A moment passes.

“Everything okay?” Percy calls from across the cavern. Keyleth looks up and sees Vex staring at her.

“…Yeah,” Vex answers, eyes never leaving Keyleth’s. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“Sorry,” Keyleth pants. “I thought it might be—but I didn’t think that would—”

“What was that?”

“Collapsed tunnel. I think. But someone wanted to hide it, so they sealed it with a fake rock wall.”

“Like how you can.”

Keyleth wrinkles her nose at the thought.

“Sorry,” says Vex, quieter than before. She looks Keyleth up and down. “Are you okay?”

Keyleth just stares. Is she okay? How can she be, miles below the ground, after days without seeing the sun, with all the uncertainty and drama and Vex constantly looking at her like—

But she doesn’t look like that now. She doesn’t look angry, or distant, or cold. She just looks like Vex. The way Vex used to look at Keyleth.

“What happened to us?”

It’s out before she can stop it, before she even registers that she’s thought it. And Keyleth knows she can’t take it back, because Vex is already staring wide-eyed at her. Her face pales. Her lips part. She looks more shaken than she has since she heard what happened at the tomb of the Raven Queen’s champion.

Keyleth can’t help but wince a little at the comparison. She shakes herself, and her movement seems to startle Vex back in to herself. Her mouth closes. She takes a half step back, away from Keyleth.

There’s anger in her gaze, but only for a moment. It dissipates quickly into…

“Hey, guys?” Vax calls. “I think I found where we’re supposed to go.”

Keyleth glances over her shoulder. He’s at the far end of the cavern, where the chamber narrows back into a tunnel. The others are already walking toward him. She looks back at Vex, but whatever expression she had has vanished.

“I—Vex—”

“I don’t know what you mean, darling.”

Vex walks past Keyleth—not quite stepping into her space—and heads off to join the others. Keyleth sighs and trails after her.

“What was that all about?” Percy asks as they reach the group.

“Keyleth found a rock fall,” says Vex. “I’m sure the entire cave heard us. We should probably get moving again. What’d you find, Vax?”

He taps his toe against the ground, and it echoes more than it should. Keyleth looks down to see a rusted metal plate bolted into the stone.

“Looks like an old path,” he says. “And further down—Grog, give us a little light?—look, there are stairs.”

“Looks…safe.”

Keyleth stands on her toes to look past the rest of the group. They’re old and crumbling, with more rusted metal marking the path.

“Do you see any other place to go?” Vax asks, an edge to his voice. Vex sighs.

“No. I don’t.”

Percy looks back at the cavern. “Whoever made this place put a lot of effort into ensuring there was only one way to go.”

“At least we know we’re going the right way, then,” says Scanlan.

“Yeah, directly into a trap.”

“Should we put the torch away?” Vax suggests.

Percy makes a noise. “The ground’s already rocky enough. I’d rather not lose my footing and fall face first into whatever’s at the bottom of these stairs.”

“On we go, then,” Grog says. He start to step forward, but stops as Vax touches his arm.

“Maybe let Vex and I take the charge again, okay?”

“As long as we get on with it.”

Vax nods, and he and Vex lead the way forward.

They all creep further along the tunnel, keeping an eye out for any more signs of life or history. The steps go on for a while, though there are areas where the ground is so broken it’s nothing more than a treacherous, eroded slope. But there’s the occasional footstep that lands too hard against metal, or an odd section of wall with a rusted length of chain that could have once been a railing, or an old lantern hanging from a hook in the wall.

Keyleth keeps her ears strained. Her breath still escapes in a quiet puff of fog. She catches the occasional distant, echoing drip of water on stone. She thinks, maybe, there are other sounds. The whistle of wind, the squeak of a bat. But when she does hear these things, they’re too quiet and distorted to really make out. So she lingers at the back of the group and doesn’t point any of them out to the others.

She starts to think that this is just what the rest of the day—and maybe even the rest of this journey—is going to be like. No monsters, no obvious path, nothing to point them toward their goal. Maybe this was a mistake. Keyleth tries to think of why they’re here, what they’re after. Answers, always. An artifact? A rumor? A favor? She almost doesn’t remember.

That’s when they reach the bridge.

It’s a rickety old thing, made of rotten wood planks and dark chain railing. That’s the first thing Keyleth notices. The second is the sheer drop into complete darkness.

The group comes to a stop. Grog holds the torch up, illuminating the room. The tunnel has opened up, a little, but there are still no paths other than the way forward. On the other side of the chasm, the steps continue to slope down.

Keyleth shifts around the group and steps up to the edge. She feels more than hears Vax shift toward her, but she ignores him and looks down.

“See anything, Keyleth?” Percy asks.

She shakes her head.

“Vex? Vax?”

Keyleth looks over in time to catch both of them shaking their heads.

“Looks just like a normal, creepy chamber with a normal, creepy bridge,” says Vax.

Scanlan walks up to the bridge. He taps a finger against one of the posts. “I don’t trust this thing,” he tells them. “Even with my weight.”

“Okay, so we ferry people across,” says Vex. She pulls her broom from over her shoulder and mounts it. She speaks its incantation in quick, guttural Draconian.

Nothing happens.

Vex frowns. She speaks again. The broom stays still.

Keyleth twists her hands together and wills her magic to come. She closes her eyes and envisions a poppy, small and vibrant, blooming red in her palm.

It doesn’t come.

“Something’s blocking magic,” she says, looking up again.

Vex scowls and shrugs her broom back over her shoulder. “Well, fuck. Vax? Your wings?”

He shrugs a little and concentrates. Then he shakes his head. “Nope. Kiki? You can’t transform?”

“No.”

“So we walk across,” says Grog. He sticks the torch out toward the bridge. “I mean, the path is right there.”

Scanlan steps back from the bridge. “Yeah, I still don’t trust it.”

“Do we have a choice?” asks Percy.

“Pike,” says Vax. “Can you sense anything in here? Or at the bottom of the pit?”

But Pike also shakes her head. “No. I don’t—she hasn’t—” Pike huffs a short, frustrated sigh. “No. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Percy touches her shoulder. “We’ll go across—carefully. We’re after something in here, which means someone has used this bridge. It’ll be fine.”

“And if it isn’t?” Vex asks.

“Well, we can cross that bridge when we get to it,” says Scanlan.

“Hilarious,” says Percy. “Maybe you should go first, since you weigh so little.”

“Yeah, no thank you.”

Vax pats his shoulder. “I’ll go. You all wait here.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Vax,” says Vex. “There are smarter ways to do this than just rushing out there.”

“Well? I’m all ears for whatever great plan you have.”

Vex crosses her arms over her chest, but Percy steps up and holds his hands out before they can get into it.

“We’ll tie a rope around Vax’s waist. Grog can hold one end as an anchor, in case you do fall through. Once you’re on the other side, you can anchor your end of the rope. Then the rest of us can cross with something sturdy to hold onto.”

“I appreciate your trust in me, Percival, but I am nowhere near strong enough to hold up one of you if you fall. And I’m with Scanlan—I don’t trust these posts to be a good anchor point, either.”

“Trinket could do it,” Vex says. Her hand comes up to grip her necklace. “I can cross and pop Trinket out, and he can hold the rope while everyone crosses.”

Grog raises his hand.

“Yes, big guy?”

“I like this plan and all, but…how am I getting across at the end?”

“All of us could…” Percy trails off before he even finishes.

“Right. Yeah. No offense, but I trust maybe Pike and Trinket and none of the rest of you to be strong enough to catch me.”

“He has a point,” Vax mutters.

Vex holds her necklace up a little. “I can cross back and grab him.”

“But that has you walking across twice with only one side supporting you,” says Vax.

Vex gives him a look. “Well? I’m all ears for whatever great plan you have.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Fine. Just—be careful, Stubby.”

“No, I thought I’d just skip the whole way across.”

Keyleth looks away again, turning back toward the chasm. She kneels to get a better look over the edge. She almost expects to hear…something. Dripping water, a deep rush of wind, that odd, distant wailing they heard yesterday. But apart from Vax and Vex’s whispers, and the sound of someone unfurling a rope behind her, she only hears silence.

And she _does_ hear it. There is weight to the empty space before her. There’s an echo to the quiet sounds of her friends. Whatever should be here, whatever is hidden, or hiding—it’s louder than any noise would be.

Two dim lights shine up at her. Keyleth gasps and jerks, one hand nearly slipping on the edge of the chasm. When she looks again, the lights are gone. She gazes hard into the pit, listening even harder.

“Keyleth?”

Vax’s voice makes her jump. She looks up again and finds them all staring at her.

“What’d you see?” asks Vex.

Keyleth looks back down at the pit, but she knows she won’t find anything.

“Eyes, I think.” She pushes herself up and heads back to the group. “We should move on quickly, before we have to fight something without any magic.”

Vex frowns, but she sets her jaw and steps up to the beginning of the bridge.

“Well, wish me luck.”

She steps out into the dark. The bridge creaks with that first step. Keyleth looks down, but nothing is watching them from the pit. She looks back at Vex. The rope sways a little as it trails from her waist to Grog’s hands. The torch—now in Percy’s hand—throws shadows along the cavern walls. They shimmer and dance and seem to arc toward Vex, reaching, before ducking back again.

Keyleth steps to the edge of the chasm. Her hands find one of the posts of the bridge and dig into it. Vex places each foot with care, but the wooden planks still shift and protest as soon as she touches them. The chain railings rattle as the bridge moves.

Vex reaches the halfway point and starts to move out of the light of the torch. Keyleth feels the soft wood of the post crumble beneath her fingers as she squeezes it. Vex keeps walking, further than the torch can reach her, further than a vine could grab her.

But there are no vines. There is no spell to catch her if she falls. There is nothing Keyleth can do but stand there and watch.

A plank snaps.

Vex jerks, and all of them lurch toward Grog, toward the rope, but her hand finds one of the chains and steadies herself. The entire bridge swings. The chains echo in the cavern. But Vex has her footing again. She glances over her shoulder at them all and winks, then keeps going.

There’s a collective exhale when Vex reaches the far side. She steps back onto solid ground and peers around for a moment before reaching up and grabbing her necklace. Trinket appears and she reaches up to rub his ears, speaking too soft for any of them to really hear.

Whatever she says, Trinket nods. Vex slips the rope from around her waist, widens the loop, and eases it over Trinket’s front paws and head so it sits around his body. He tenses, lowering his head, and stares back across the cavern at the rest of them. Even from this far away, Keyleth can see determination burning in his eyes.

Vex turns back to the group and gives a thumbs up.

“Who’s next?” Percy asks.

Vax is already stepping out onto the bridge. He grips the rope in one hand and looks back at them. “You got me, big guy?”

“Yeah, I got you.”

Vax nods, then looks at Keyleth. She doesn’t know what he’s trying to say when he looks at her, but she tilts her head toward him anyway.

Seemingly satisfied, Vax turns away again and starts making his way across the bridge.

It’s a slow process. They all watch each careful step. They tense with every sway of the bridge. Keyleth winces when he comes across the plank Vex had broken. But Vax steps around it effortlessly. Soon enough, he’s on the other side as well.

Pike goes next, moving across with much more noise than any of them would like. She snaps another plank on her way, and this time her leg falls through completely, the rope dipping with her weight. But she holds on, and the strain is nothing for Grog and Trinket, so she quickly pulls herself back up and continues across.

Scanlan is next, and when he reaches the other side Percy looks at Keyleth. She reaches her hand out for the torch.

“Go,” she says. “I’ll keep the light up.”

He nods his thanks and starts off. On the other side, Pike lights a second torch. The two fires meet in the middle, lighting Percy’s entire way across the bridge.

When he’s safely across, Keyleth lowers her torch and stamps it out against the stone.

“Okay, Grog?”

“Please. I could probably throw you across just fine.”

Keyleth gives a wry, half-smile that disappears as she steps up to the bridge. She grips the rope and starts easing her way across.

Her eyes stay on her feet the entire time. She doesn’t want to see Vax’s worried stare, or Scanlan not paying attention at all, or whatever look Vex is currently giving her. So she looks down instead.

The planks are dark with moisture and rot. Every step is muffled by the softness of the wood. As her hands move along the rope, her knuckles brush against the cold metal of the chain railing.

If she falls and loses her grip, how long would the drop be? Does the thing blocking their magic reach all the way to the bottom? Is that creature she saw earlier still here, waiting in the dark for one of them to make a wrong move?

She steps into the edge of the torchlight. Halfway across, then. She still doesn’t look up.

Were those eyes she saw? How long has that thing been following them? And what is it waiting for, if this isn’t the perfect chance to strike?

The light flickers against the chasm. The bridge moves with her weight. She tries to be quiet, to be careful, but she’s not as good at this as Vex or Vax. And she’s not as strong as Pike, who could hold on when she fell. She’s not—

She sees the other side of the cavern at the top of her vision. Ground, solid ground. No watchful eyes beneath her, no unknowable drops into darkness. Just a few more steps. She sees someone—Vax, certainly—moving closer to the edge.

The creak comes first. The wood bends beneath her foot, groaning in protest. Then it snaps entirely, and she’s falling before she can even process what happened. One hand tightens until the rope burns against her palm. The other flies out, reaching desperately for rope or chain or wood to catch herself.

A hand grabs her wrist. Her arm pulls taut and one knee hits the bridge. Keyleth winces as pain shoots through her leg, but she’s no longer falling. She’s just hanging there, one leg dangling over nothing, the other trembling with pain and effort.

She feels the hand at her wrist pull. Keyleth looks up at Vax—but he’s not there. Vex is.

Keyleth stares. She can no longer feel the ache in her knee or the burn of her hand on the rope. She doesn’t see the others behind Vex, or Trinket holding the rope she’s currently, partially hanging from. She just sees Vex, her outline glowing with the torchlight behind her.

“Come on, dear,” Vex whispers, tugging gently. Keyleth keeps staring, even as she pulls herself up with Vex’s aid.

She’s still a step out from the edge. She notices Vex’s other hand wrapped around one of the posts—the only thing keeping her stable as she lurched out over the edge to grab Keyleth.

“Vex…” No sound comes out. It doesn’t matter. Vex is staring at her, too. She knows what she said.

Vex holds onto Keyleth until they’re both a step away from the bridge—and not a moment longer. Vax grabs Keyleth and pulls her into a tight hug, and she feels Vex’s hand slip from around her wrist.

“Don’t fucking scare us like that,” Vax mutters.

Keyleth nods and wraps an arm around him, hugging him back, but she doesn’t say anything. She can feel a chill on her wrist where Vex’s fingers were.

“Are you okay?” asks Vax.

Keyleth nods. Shrugs. She can’t find her voice to assure him it’s fine, but it is. The cool absence of Vex’s touch, the way her eyes burned into Keyleth’s—it’s fine. Everything is fine. And whatever isn’t fine is just this stupid bridge, and her own stupid thoughts.

Vax eases his grip. Keyleth takes the excuse to shift back half a step, and he lets his arms fall. He looks about to say something, but then he sees Vex stepping back up to the bridge. Everyone tenses again as she grips the rope and steps out. She has to stretch a little to avoid the plank Keyleth just broke, but she does so without too much issue.

A hush falls over the cavern as they all watch Vex leave the light of the torch once more. Keyleth moves over to Trinket and lays a hand on his back, over the loop of the rope. He grumbles quietly and tilts his head toward her, but his eyes stay trained on the other side of the chamber.

Vex reaches Grog. He helps her tie the rope snugly around her waist, giving it a little tug just in case. Vex pats his arm and says something, but they’re too far away to hear. Grog nods and stands back. He holds his arms out, squeezes his eyes shut—and then vanishes.

Vex holds her necklace for a second. Her shoulders rise with a heavy breath. Then she turns back to the bridge.

Like Keyleth, she keeps her eyes on her feet as she crosses. Her hands move automatically, gathering the excess rope as she creeps closer. She reaches the plank Pike broke and steps over it, her body dipping and rising again with the motion.

Halfway across. The torch hits her face, but she doesn’t look any warmer. Her skin is still pale, framed in dark hair that Keyleth can only barely make out from the shadows around her.

Vex pale, dark hair spilling onto the shadowed stone floor beneath her, her eyes open but not looking at Keyleth, at any of them. The shadows of the underground chamber reaching out to touch her, to claim her, to take her away from them.

The chain links shift, jangling quietly, pulling Keyleth back into the room. She digs her fingers into Trinket’s fur. They are not in the sunken tomb. There is no Raven Queen here, nor her long lost champion. And Vex is breathing, moving, stepping slowly but steadily closer to them.

Keyleth wants to look away, can’t possibly look away. She keeps her eyes on Vex’s face, her downturned gaze, how the light falls across the rest of her body as she makes her way closer, closer…

She nears the end. Keyleth stirs, wanting to step forward—to reach out for her, to catch Vex the same way Vex caught her—but Vax gets there first. He grabs Vex’s arm as soon as she’s in reach and helps her to safety, even though she scoffs and pushes at him half-heartedly.

“Really, I’m fine, Vax. See? No problem.” She shoos him back. “Now move, let me get Grog out.”

She holds out her necklace and Grog appears. He stretches until his back cracks, then lets out a satisfied sigh.

Keyleth busies herself with the rope around Trinket. He gives her a grateful lick after she unties it, and she scratches beneath his chin in return.

“I can’t believe it,” says Percy. “We did a thing without fucking everything up.”

“Great, now you jinxed it,” Scanlan says. “Let’s go before our bad luck catches up to us.”

They all gather themselves and get ready to continue on. Keyleth moves away from Trinket as Vex comes over to him. She drifts to the back of the group, looking over her shoulder at the empty chasm.

Scanlan pauses, drawing their attention. “Hold on. Vex, please don’t tell me you plan on keeping Trinket out.”

Keyleth turns her gaze back to Vex. She’s standing next to Trinket, hand absently scratching the top of his head. She scowls at Scanlan, then looks down at Trinket.

“We do need to be quiet,” Vax says gently.

“Yeah, and some of these caverns can get pretty small,” Grog points out.

Vex frowns. They’re right, Keyleth knows. And she can tell Vex knows it, too. But she still shakes her head.

“I know, but…just for a little while, okay?” Vex sweeps her hand down Trinket’s neck. He shakes his head and rumbles happily.

A smile ghosts across Vex’s face, small and wavering, and Keyleth thinks that maybe, just maybe, there’s a part of Vex that’s fading down here, too.

“Vex—”

“Besides, he doesn’t want to be cramped in the necklace right away again. Do you, buddy?”

Trinket whines, a clear affirmative. Vex tucks her necklace beneath her shirt and pats his head, almost smug.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Seriously?” Scanlan asks.

“Seriously, Scanlan. Now let’s go.”

She takes off without looking back, giving them no choice but to follow. Vax jogs ahead to keep an eye out, but Vex stays a few steps behind him. Her hand lingers in Trinket’s fur.

The stairs resume, more solid and defined than before. The next time they spot an old lantern on the wall, it doesn’t look quite as rusty. After another half hour or so, they come across the broken pieces of a small cart.

“We’re getting close to something,” Percy says.

Everyone shifts, but no one seems to have a response to that. They keep walking.

Keyleth doesn’t mean to keep her gaze on Vex as they continue on. But something about the way she’s walking, just a little too close to Trinket, keeps drawing Keyleth’s gaze. She pulled her hood up some time after the bridge so that all Keyleth can see is her dark outline in the light of the torch. Her head is bent, too, not looking at any of them. Keyleth desperately wants to know what she’s thinking.

She’s so caught up staring at the back of Vex’s head, she almost doesn’t notice when they reach the end of the stairs. As the ground levels out before them, Vax pauses and tilts his head.

“Well, Percival’s not wrong,” he says quietly. “We’re definitely getting close to something.”

Vex moves away from Trinket to stand next to him. Keyleth eases her way forward to get a better look.

It’s another chamber, thinner than the last one, though just as tall. But all the natural pieces of the cave are gone. Instead of a treacherous, rocky ground, there’s just smooth stone. Stalactites don’t hang from the ceiling—old, dark chandeliers do.

The change is so sudden that Keyleth takes a step back, shrinking into uneven walls and rough ground once more. Percy pushes past her, followed quickly by Grog and Pike and Scanlan. Keyleth watches them all as they start looking around.

“There’s something written here,” says Percy. He raises the torch and approaches the left wall. For a moment he just stares at the script, but then he sighs and shakes his head. “Nothing I know. Vex? Keyleth?”

Vex makes her way over—as does Vax. Keyleth hesitates at the base of the stairs. A chill runs up her back and she feels the hairs on her neck rise.

“Kiki,” Vax calls softly. She meets his eyes as he beckons her over.

She shakes herself a little, hopes no one noticed, and goes to join them.

“This half’s in Abyssal,” Vex says as she walks over. “But I don’t know about the first half. It’s…”

“Old,” Percy offers.

“Yes. Very.”

Keyleth walks up to the wall. She has to stand next to Vex to get a good look at the first half of the script. She doesn’t breathe as she gets close, and she expects Vex to move away.

She doesn’t.

Keyleth lets her breath out slowly, trying not to make a sound. She forces herself to focus.

The words are carved into the wall, though it’s not a long message. The top half is made of neat, even letters—familiar ones.

“It’s Primordial,” says Keyleth. She lifts her hand and runs her fingers along the words. “‘Let none walk these halls.’”

“Hm.” Vex frowns and points to the line beneath it. These letters are more jagged, carved in a hasty, uneven script. “‘Let all stalk these halls.’”

Keyleth drops her hand. “That’s…comforting.”

Vex gives her a long, unreadable look. Then she turns away and walks away, heading over to the other three.

“Primordial and Abyssal?” Percy asks. “That’s interesting. I wonder why.”

Keyleth shrugs. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Vax do the same.

“Food for thought, I guess.” Percy looks between them, and Keyleth catches the curl of his lip. “I’m going to, ah, see if Pike’s found anything.”

She glares at him, but he’s already turning and following Vex away. Keyleth resists the urge to sigh. Vax turns to her.

“So…”

“I think it’s getting late,” she says quickly. “Should we stop now, rest for the night before we head into…whatever’s waiting for us down here?”

Vax tilts his head at her, but he doesn’t object. Instead, he looks back at the others.

“What do you guys think? Camp here for the night?”

Pike glances around. Her hand grasps her holy symbol as she eyes the chamber.

“I’m okay with that,” she says softly.

Everyone else murmurs agreements, and they all quietly go about setting up camp.

“Should we risk a fire?” Scanlan asks.

“Didn’t Keyleth see eyes earlier?” Vax points out. “Whatever’s around here already knows where we are.”

“I mean, I _thought_ I saw—”

“We could’ve lost them by now,” says Grog. “What’s one night without a fire?”

Pike pats his arm. “You might be fine down here, buddy, but it is kind of cold for the rest of us.”

“We’ve got blankets.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Keyleth,” says Vax. “Can’t you conceal it somehow?”

_Now_ they all look at her. Keyleth shifts. “I can try? But if something already knows we’re here I don’t know how effective…”

“Oh, just do it,” Vex says. “Whatever’s down here can see in the dark, anyway. And this way Percy can actually help keep watch.”

“O-okay.”

“I’ve got some firewood left,” Pike says. “I can help you, Keyleth.”

Keyleth nods, grateful for the help and for the way everyone disperses again. She and Pike pick a spot in the corner, far away from the text Percy had found.

Even with the others moving quietly behind her, and Pike at her side laying out her kindling, that same chill from before creeps in. Keyleth can feel her stomach sinking. It’s still cold down here. There’s still the slightest breeze.

She kneels on the ground and tries to focus on the feeling of hard stone pushing against her knees, and the layer of dust beneath her palms as she leans forward.

“Stand back a bit,” she murmurs to Pike, who shuffles back a foot or so. Keyleth presses against the ground until she feels it shift and part beneath her. She carves a small hole into the stone, just wide and deep enough to maintain a fire. Then she scoots over a bit and does it again, creating a smaller hole to feed into the pit.

“Whoa.” Pike grins at her. “That’s cool.”

“It’ll take a little more care to keep it burning through the night, but it’ll at least help hide the light.” Keyleth looks up and frowns. “And maybe make less smoke.”

“Well, it’s better than I could do.” Pike lays down and starts carefully setting up the fire. Keyleth stretches out beside her. Occasionally she’ll reach into the pit and readjust something, but for the most part she just rests her chin on her wrist and watches.

“How’re you holding up, Pike?” she says after a little while.

Pike wrinkles her nose. “This place is quiet. It’s…not really my strong suit.” She laughs, quietly, uncertainly, but it slips into a sigh. “Plus…”

Keyleth tilts her head. “What? What is it?”

“I…I couldn’t feel her last night.” Pike glances around as she says it, but Keyleth isn’t sure who she’s afraid of overhearing.

“Sarenrae?”

“Yeah.” Pike brushes back a piece of hair that’s fallen from her bun. “I was…praying, you know, last night on my watch. I was thinking about…about us, and what we were doing, and this place. And I reached out to her and…” She shrugs. “She was quiet.”

Keyleth looks down at the wood and kindling they’ve placed. “You think she’s weaker down here?”

“Or something else is stronger.”

The air feels heavier around them. Keyleth pushes herself up, and Pike does the same.

“I’m sorry, Pike. It…it must be hard.”

But Pike shakes her head. “No harder than being away from the sun.”

“So…hard.”

Pike gives her a weak smile. “Yeah. Guess so.”

“Are you two done yet?” Grog asks, ambling over. He plops onto the ground beside Pike. “I thought you said you were cold.”

“Keyleth?”

Keyleth looks between Pike and Grog, then down at the pit. She bites back her sigh and reaches into the ground. Her fingers wrap around kindling. She focuses for a moment, and then her hand is on fire, lighting the kindling and, not long after, the thinner pieces of wood around it.

She pulls her hand back out. “There. Keep an eye on it—it’s more likely to burn out down there.”

Then she pushes herself to her feet and walks away. The others move to gather around the fire, but she slips past them all to do a lap around the chamber.

She almost can’t believe this is part of the cave they’ve been walking through all day. The smooth walls, the even lines along the floor—it’s all so different from what they’ve seen so far. Keyleth runs her knuckle along a groove in the wall. It’s smooth, nearly flawless—though her finger comes back with dust on it.

Behind her, she can hear Grog and Scanlan talking. She catches the scrape of a knife against a plate, and Trinket’s low grumble. She thinks about looking over her shoulder at them, but changes her mind and just keeps walking.

The lanterns are more frequent in here, too, though it doesn’t look like they’ve been used in decades, at least. Above her, the chandeliers are just as old. There’s even a dark candelabra in a far corner of the room. Keyleth pauses when she reaches it. Five candles stand in its frame, all with hardened wax dripping down the side. She hesitates, then reaches up and touches one. More dust.

Near the candelabra, the wall opens into another tunnel. It’s larger than any of the ones they’ve seen so far, and just as intentional as the chamber they’re in. Keyleth steps up to the entrance and peers out as far as she can see. The path continues down along neat, even steps. She notices another unlit lantern a few feet down.

She steps back again and glances around the cavern. No other exits, except the way they came. Keyleth narrows her eyes at the tunnel, but she doesn’t see much else. No shadows shifting in the darkness, no eyes reflecting the dim light. Whatever’s down there, she supposes, will just have to wait until tomorrow.

With a sigh, she continues on her path. Pike’s bright laugh sounds, just for a moment, and this time she can’t resist looking back at her friends.

Pike is leaning into Grog’s side. One small hand clutches his arm, just a little tighter than necessary. Her laugh has already faded, though Keyleth sees the others still smiling. Poor Pike. Keyleth wonders if something really is blocking Sarenrae down here, or if they’ve just traveled too far for Sarenrae to pay them any attention.

She finds herself looking at Vex, next. Vex, leaning into Trinket. Vex, smiling at whatever Scanlan is saying to her, but frowning again as soon as he looks away.

“Kiki.”

Vax ducks out of the way as Keyleth spins around.

“ _Fuck,_ Vax. Don’t do that.”

“Sorry. I thought you could hear me.”

His eyes dance, even as his smile softens. Keyleth isn’t sure whether to smack him or hug him. She does neither and instead keeps walking. He falls into step beside her.

“You didn’t eat.”

“I’m on my way back.”

“I’m sorry. I know you hate being underground.”

He says it so simply, just stating a fact. But no one else has said it the entire time they’ve been here. Keyleth feels her eyes start to burn.

She adjusts her grip on her staff and gives herself a little shake. “Yeah, well. What can we do about it.”

“If I could leave now, and take you out of here, I would.”

Keyleth stops. They’re nearing the edge of the firelight. Pike and Grog and Scanlan have their backs to them, and Percy can’t see, but if Vex looked up right now, she would spot them both standing there, close enough together that Keyleth can feel the warmth of Vax’s skin.

She doesn’t want to run away from here, and she doesn’t want Vax to help her do it. She wants to find what they came here for. She wants to help. She wants to make sure the others make it out okay—to make sure Vex doesn’t end up cold and dead on another stone floor.

And she wants space. She wants Vax to go sit by Vex, so that when she looks up and sees Keyleth standing there she doesn’t look so upset. She wants to tell him, again, that she hasn’t promised him anything. She _can’t._

Deep down, she doesn’t even want to.

But she doesn’t know how to tell Vax that. And she doesn’t want to push him so far he starts avoiding her, too.

So she just sighs and shakes her head. “You know neither of us would ever actually do that.”

He smiles, eyes crinkled, features alight with fondness. “Yeah. I suppose we wouldn’t.”

Keyleth opens her mouth to respond, but then she stops. She feels, suddenly, a pair of eyes on her. When she pauses, she can practically hear the hush that has fallen over their friends.

She clears her throat. “Uh, we should…”

“Right. Yeah.” Vax holds out an arm, urging her to lead the way. Feet heavy, she starts walking back toward their little camp. She doesn’t look at Vex to see the expression on her face. Really, she doesn’t need to.

They reach the circle. Vax shifts, moves his arm as if to beckon her over to where he was sitting before. Keyleth feels her stomach knot and, without really thinking it through, turns so she can’t see him. She walks over to Percy instead and tries not to regret it when he smirks up at her.

At least he passes her a plate when she sits down beside him. The conversation resumes around them, and Keyleth lets out a little breath.

“Thanks.”

“It’s the least I can do,” he says quietly. “For such quality entertainment.”

“It’s not funny, Percy.”

“On the contrary, I find it quite amusing.”

Keyleth frowns down at her plate. She stabs at her food with more force than is really necessary. Percy doesn’t say anything else.

Good. Fine. Let him laugh. Let Vex glare. Let Vax linger hopelessly beside her. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t _matter._

She stays quiet the rest of the night. She doesn’t chime in after Scanlan’s story, or when Percy starts making a plan for tomorrow, or when Pike suggests they all get some rest.

“Keyleth and I can take first watch,” Vax offers, and Keyleth doesn’t even have to look up to know that they’re all looking at her.

So, she doesn’t. She keeps her eyes on the ground in front of her and mumbles, “I don’t think I can keep my eyes open. Wake me up for second, instead.”

She _does_ look up in time to see Vax’s face fall. That’s how she catches a glimpse of Vex beside him.

“Oh,” Vax says. “Of course. You should get your sleep. Percival?”

“Sure. I had some tinkering to do, anyway.”

Keyleth grabs her pack and moves a few feet away from the circle, away from the look Vex is giving her. So what? She’d be glaring just as hard if Keyleth had stayed up with Vax.

She lays out her bedroll and collapses onto it, facing away from the fire. She’s just far enough away for it to feel colder. She doesn’t care.

She listens to the soft sounds of her friends moving about and settling down behind her. It doesn’t lull her to sleep. Instead she feels wired, agitated. After the others fall quiet, she can hear the occasional echoing drip of water or the soft, distant sigh of a draft. Or maybe she’s imagining it. Maybe it’s just her blood roaring in her ears or the popping of a piece of firewood. Maybe it’s nothing, nothing at all, just like everything else in this stupid cave.

She hears Percy and Vax talking—she even catches her name, once. But she tucks her head under her arm and presses against her ear, hard, until she’s almost shaking with the effort and she can’t hear much of anything anymore.

To be honest, she’s not sure if she sleeps. She just knows that she’s awake for a long time, and she’s awake still, or again, when she hears Vax walking over to her.

“Kiki?”

“I’m up.”

Vax stops, not quite at her side. “Okay. We didn’t see anything. Looks like you’re on your own. Vex has the last shift.”

_Of course,_ Keyleth thinks. She pushes herself up and gives him a nod. He waves a little and heads over to his own bedroll. Percy is already asleep again, curled up in a little pile with Pike, who is also intertwined with Grog and Scanlan.

Keyleth lowers herself to the ground with her back to the fire pit. A shiver runs up her spine as warmth seeps into her skin.

Maybe it’s a good thing they haven’t run into anything down here, because she’s barely sleeping enough to keep up with her spells. Even now, with the warm fire and her friends all fast asleep around her, she struggles to keep her eyes open.

But she knows that even if she did give in and try to sleep, she wouldn’t. This place is too unsettling. The dark is too heavy.

Her friends rely too much on her. They shouldn’t, but they do. She can’t let them down. Not when they need her to create walls or build fires or scry on friends and enemies or move them halfway across the continent. Not when Pike confides in her, or when Vax looks at her like she holds every answer they’ve been searching for.

He’s wrong, of course. They’re all wrong. She can’t live up to what they want, what they think she is.

She thinks, sometimes, that Vex knows. Maybe that’s the reason—the real reason—behind why she looks at Keyleth like she’s ruined everything. It’s bad enough that Vax fell for someone, but the fact that it’s _Keyleth._

She presses her palms to her eyes and presses, hard, until colors dance in the darkness. She drops her hands and blinks away the spots.

She can’t sleep. She fears she won’t even fall asleep later, when Vex wakes and takes the last watch. But right now she doesn’t need to. Right now she just needs to focus. She can’t be as good as they need her to be, but she can sure as hell try. Really, what other choice does she have?

It shouldn’t be possible for the cave to grow colder, but it does. Twice, Keyleth turns around and adds more fuel to the fire. It doesn’t get any warmer.

She’s shivering by the time Vex starts to stir. Keyleth’s tongue is heavy in her mouth, keeping her from saying anything, but Vex must sense something because she sits up anyway.

“What time is it?” she mumbles, rubbing at her eyes. Keyleth swallows hard. Vex’s hair is pushed all in the wrong direction, her eyes half-shut with sleep. Keyleth should respond, she knows, but all words vanish from her mind and she just stares, drinking her in. “Keyleth?”

Keyleth sniffs, and suddenly she feels the weight of her sleepless night settle on her. “Sorry. I—I’m not sure.”

Vex yawns and stretches. “Well. We’ll just say it’s my shift then.”

“Okay.” It’s more of a breath than a word, but it’s all she can get out. Keyleth ducks her head as she catches Vex’s yawn. “I guess…good night, then.”

She pushes herself to her feet to walk back over to her bedroll. As she passes, Vex’s hand darts out and grabs her wrist.

“Keyleth?”

She looks at her, but Vex is already facing away.

Still, her voice is softer than she’s heard it in weeks when she says, “Try to get some sleep, dear.”

Keyleth stares at the place where Vex’s fingers wrap around her skin. Her mind has gone blank again, too tired and too heavy to catch up and say the things she thinks she desperately wants to say.

Vex’s hand drops. “We need your spells tomorrow,” she adds, and her voice is hard again, as chilly as the air around them.

Maybe she’s just trying to be firm. Maybe she’s telling Keyleth to get the fuck out of her own head so she can actually be useful. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t think it matters. She just nods and moves on. When she reaches her bedroll, she falls onto it and curls up tight.

And as she lays there—too tired, too cold, too much of everything to just let herself fall asleep—she swears she hears a quiet, frustrated sigh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, y'all!

Vex knows she has many weaknesses, but she also knows that talking to people isn’t one of them.

She’s saved the group thousands of gold over the course of their adventures. She’s won secrets and entry and a couple of hearts along the way with clever words and a dazzling smile. She can be charming, she can be cutting, and it has never been anything other than second nature to her.

Except when it comes to Keyleth.

Vex knows it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when she could make Keyleth giggle or stammer or gasp with just a few short words. There was a time when she barely even had to speak, she just had to look at her, and somehow both of them knew what to do next. There was a time when talking to Keyleth was the easiest thing in the world—easier than saving a couple coins. Easier, even, than telling some of her secrets to Vax. But it’s not easy anymore.

Well, that’s not entirely true. She can still be mean to Keyleth. A few quick words, and she can get her to turn away and collapse silently onto her bedroll.

Vex will admit—though she hates herself for it—that it started off as intentional. Vax pursuing Keyleth…well, it _hurt._ And if she could make someone else feel that, then at least she wouldn’t be alone.

Vax doesn’t care about her words. She can snap and scold and insult Vax all day and he still wouldn’t change what he was doing. But Keyleth? Her words affect Keyleth. They always have.

She tells Zahra that Vax is the only person she’s ever had, and she doesn’t want to lose him. She tells Vax that Keyleth is stringing him along, and she doesn’t want to see him hurt.

She tells no one that she’s moved past both of those things, but she’s still horribly, painfully _jealous_. And that once she started being cruel, there was some part of her that just couldn’t stop.

And so now here she is, watching Keyleth’s tightly curled form, her own cold words echoing in her mind.

Vex tells herself it doesn’t matter. It’s the truth, after all. They need Keyleth’s spells. They need _Keyleth._ This place is strange. It’s cold and damp and dark and almost certainly haunted by _something_ , even though they haven’t run into anything worse than that rat nest. The point is, they need her. They always need her.

She just wishes she could be nicer about it.

Vex looks over at Keyleth, taking in the tight set of her shoulders. She’s not breathing deeply enough to be asleep. Vex bites back another sigh.

Percy mentions from time to time how he feels like he takes advantage of Keyleth’s helpfulness in his workshop. Vex knows they’re all guilty of it. They need to scry on someone? Keyleth. They need to move quickly across the world? Keyleth. Pike’s not around to heal? Keyleth. Keyleth can jump into the fray with Grog. She can take heavy hits and dish them right back out. She can fly and send signals and part storms and Vex knows, she _knows_ they’d be absolutely fucked without her.

Vex reaches back until her hand finds Trinket. She buries her fingers in his fur and times her breathing with his. The group needs Keyleth, but Vex needs her more. And she’ll never bring herself to say it.

She leans back into Trinket. She should be paying more attention, but she rarely gets to let her mind wander like this. If the others were awake, if they’d heard her speak to Keyleth like that, it would be different. Vax would give her a dirty look. Grog would tip his ale back and pretend not to hear. But the conversation would quickly move on, and Vex would be allowed to forget about it. Mostly.

There’s no forgetting about it now. There’s no ignoring it. There’s just her and this cold, empty chamber, where her words keep echoing in her mind.

Vex shakes herself and looks about the room. Nothing. The fire is dim beside her. The others breathe softly. They’re alone—as far as she can tell. It doesn’t really make her feel any better.

Keyleth’s surely not asleep yet. She could go to her and gently stir her. She could apologize—for just now and for everything before. She _should_ apologize. It’s not the first time she’s thought so.

But what scares her even more than facing Keyleth is what might come after. If she apologizes, she knows Keyleth will ask for an explanation. That’s something Vex can simply never give. Not to Keyleth, not to Vax—gods, she can hardly even say it to herself.

She lets the fire die down as the hours trickle by, though she regrets it when she starts to shiver. Even Trinket is colder than usual down here.

But just as the chill starts to become unbearable, Pike stirs. Vex sits perfectly still, desperate not to wake her early, but Pike is used to early hours at the temple or on a ship. She pushes herself up, attempts to carefully untangle herself from her little pile of Percy and Grog and Scanlan, and walks over to sit by Vex near the fire.

The others aren’t far behind. No one speaks as they gradually shift and sigh and wake, but soon enough everyone is up and gathering their things.

Almost everyone.

“I’m awake,” she hears Keyleth whisper. Vex looks over to see her still lying down, Vax walking up behind her. A long moment passes before Keyleth moves. She pushes herself up and begins folding her blanket. Vax says something soft to her, and Vex looks away before she really starts eavesdropping.

They both join the group a minute later. Vex lets herself look at Keyleth. Her face is gaunt, with heavy shadows under her eyes. She hasn’t said anything else since she sat up.

Not that anyone is really talkative this morning—or what they assume is morning. Vex looks around at her friends. Everyone looks tired. Everyone looks…harrowed. The scenery might have changed—finally—but the fact remains that they’re still deep underground with no signs of where they’re going or what lies ahead. Vex can’t quite shake the awful, heavy feeling that nothing has changed from this time yesterday, or the day before it.

Still, there’s nothing to do about it but keep pressing onward. Vex shakes her hair from its tie and braids it again, then tugs on her gloves and slings her broom, quiver, and bow over her shoulder. Vax is already at the edge of the group, twirling a dagger between his fingers while he waits.

They walk to the tunnel at the far end of the chamber. It’s as manmade as the rest of this hall. Percy lights another torch and holds it out, but it doesn’t light the path far enough for any of them to see where the stairs lead.

“Well?” Percy prompts. “Nothing for it but to keep going, I suppose.”

“Yes, but…quietly.” Vax glances at Pike, who shrinks a little.

“Sorry, guys.”

Grog pats his shoulder. “Pike, maybe you should just…”

She nods—a little dejectedly—and climbs up to ride on his shoulders.

Vax turns to Vex. “You coming?”

Grabbing her necklace, she turns back to Trinket. “Sorry, buddy.”

He gives a little rumble, but he sits patiently and waits for her to summon him into the necklace. When he’s safe, she nods at Vax and follows him into the shadows ahead.

They move quicker today than they have been. Or maybe it’s the new tunnel, finally giving them some semblance of changing scenery. Maybe it’s just in Vex’s head. Either way, it makes her feel on edge. She can’t shake the thought that they’re rushing through, missing something, and if she could just stop and _focus_ , she could see whatever it is she needs to see.

But there’s nothing to see. Every time she looks around, she catches the same details. Dark stone steps, a dusty, half-melted candle, the occasional door that looks like it hasn’t been opened in years. Percy tries one, shortly after they enter the tunnel, but it doesn’t budge. Not even when Grog tries to shove it open.

She sees Keyleth, every time she looks over her shoulder at the others. Keyleth who looks washed out despite her usual vibrancy. Keyleth who lingers at the back of the group and hasn’t said a word, even when they were debating over the door or discussing the style of stonecutting in the tunnel.

Once, she thinks she sees the shadows shifting. She freezes and holds her arm out to stop Vax. He glances at her, then follows her gaze further down the tunnel. But there’s nothing there.

“What?” he whispers after a long pause.

“I thought…” She trails, not sure what she thought it was. It could’ve been the torch, she supposes, casting strange shadows along the floor and walls. Except she and Vax are a few dozen feet ahead of the others. When she looks back, the flickering edge of the torchlight is far behind them. “I don’t know.”

Vax continues to stare ahead. “…I don’t see anything.”

It could’ve been her imagination. It could’ve been her eyes playing tricks on her. Or, it could just be gone, vanished as soon as she noticed whatever it was.

“I don’t know,” she says again. Vax nods.

“Well…should we keep going, then?”

“…Yeah.”

They keep going.

Whatever it was—if it was really something—it doesn’t appear again. The shadows remain still and heavy as they continue on.

Occasionally she hears the others moving or speaking softly behind them. Pike readjusts on Grog’s shoulders. Scanlan hums a little tune while Percy stops to investigate something. She keeps an ear out for Keyleth—anything from Keyleth—but it never comes. Vex has to keep looking back just to assure herself that she’s still there.

Once when she turns around, she sees Percy standing against the wall. He lets the others pass him until he reaches the back of the group, where he falls in step with Keyleth. They’re too far away to hear, but Vex can’t stop herself from watching as his lips move.

“ _You’re quiet today._ ”

Keyleth lifts one shoulder, lets it fall again.

“ _Still no idea about what this place is?_ ” Percy asks. “ _I’m admittedly starting to get frustrated._ ”

“ _If I knew, I would’ve said something by now._ ”

Percy looks sideways at her.

“Vex,” Vax whispers from beside her. “Are you coming?”

She shakes herself. “Yeah. Sorry.”

They keep walking, deeper underground, further into the dark, and it takes everything she has not to leave Vax and go to Keyleth’s side instead.

-

A long time passes before they reach the bottom of the stairs. Vex can hear Grog’s impatient sigh every few minutes. Keyleth still hasn’t said anything, and Percy has long since given up and rejoined the group.

There’s no chamber at the base of the steps. The tunnel just continues straight, with no doors or alternative paths to be found. Vex runs her hand along one of the walls, half-expecting it to slip through an illusion at any moment. But it never does.

“Gee, I wonder which way to go,” Scanlan says. “Is anyone else getting really sick of this?”

“At least we know we’re not lost,” says Pike.

Percy gives a short, quiet laugh. “Well. We don’t exactly know that.”

“Love the optimism, dear,” Vex says absently. She’s still peering down the tunnel ahead. She almost misses the craggy, uneven path of the cave before. These halls give off a dreadful sense of anticipation that’s starting to annoy her.

She hears Vax shift and move away. She doesn’t have to look back to know he’s going over to Keyleth—though she still does, of course. She glances over her shoulder in time to see Keyleth wrap her arms around her torso and tilt her head away from him.

“You okay?” he asks softly. Vex sets her jaw. The entire group can hear him. From the way Keyleth’s cheeks heat up, she knows it, too.

But then Keyleth glances up, and her eyes lock with Vex’s. Her blush deepens. Her brow knits together and her shoulders slump. She looks away again.

“Fine. We should keep going.”

No one objects. They keep going.

Another half hour passes before Vax stops them again. His hand is on his earring before Vex can even look to see what caught his attention.

“ _Kiki_?” he asks. “ _Can you come up here?_ ”

Vex turns to watch Keyleth slip past the others. She steps out of the torchlight, turning even colder and darker as she moves through the hall.

“Yeah?”

Vax gestures to the wall, and now Vex takes a look at what stopped him. Beside him, the smooth, carved stone of the wall breaks into a section of fallen rock and rubble.

“Another collapsed tunnel,” she says as Keyleth joins them. “But it’s not covered up this time.”

“Covered up?”

“Someone had made a wall to try to disguise the ruined tunnel. Back in the cavern yesterday.”

Keyleth nods absently. She kneels before the rubble.

“Is it natural?” Vax asks her. “Or did someone do it?”

“It…looks natural.” Keyleth runs her hand along the broken edge of the wall. She reaches out and picks up a large chunk of rock, turning it in her hand. “But I don’t think it was.”

“No?”

She shakes her head. “Everything about this place feels intentional, even when it doesn’t look like it.”

Neither of them can argue with that.

A cry comes up from the tunnel, warbling and shrill, before cutting off abruptly. The lingering sound echoes around them. Keyleth pushes herself to her feet, gripping her staff hard. Vex nocks an arrow and aims ahead, but nothing appears in the darkness.

From somewhere else, something yips and barks. Another voice joins in, and another, weaving in and out of each other in a series of howls and wails.

And then it stops. The echo pulses around them before it, too, fades away. The three of them stand there, looking both ways down the tunnel.

The silence continues for a moment, then two, then three.

“Do you see anything?” Vex breathes.

“No, but whatever it is has to be close,” says Vax.

“I don’t think it is,” Keyleth whispers. “Too much of an echo. And it was coming from…everywhere.”

Vex silently agrees, though she doesn’t want to. “We should get back to the others.”

They find the rest of the group with weapons drawn, equally on edge.

“Don’t suppose that was you howling,” Scanlan says when they approach.

“Sorry, no. Did you see anything?”

“We couldn’t even tell where it was coming from,” says Pike.

“Us neither.”

Percy stretches his arm out, lifting the torch higher, but nothing shows up in its light.

“Maybe we should stay close,” he says. “That sounded almost like a hunting call.”

Keyleth nods silently. Vex reaches for her necklace and desperately wishes she could bring Trinket out.

“Well,” Grog says. “Are we gonna sit here like bait, or are we gonna keep moving?”

“And we’re sure we have no idea where it was coming from?” Vex looks over her shoulder at the path ahead of them.

“Even if we did, what are we going to do?” Vax asks her. “There’s only one way forward.”

“I know, I know, I just…” She huffs and pushes the loose strands of her hair back. “Whatever. Let’s keep going.”

She turns around to start off again, and as she does her eyes meet Keyleth’s again. She sees a familiar desperation reflected back at her.

They both drop their gaze. Vex walks to the front of the group again with Vax—albeit closer to the others this time—while Keyleth slinks back to her spot behind everyone.

Vex keeps an arrow nocked as they start moving again. She keeps blinking hard, as if that will somehow clear away the darkness surrounding them and reveal…something. Vax moves silently beside her. The torchlight surrounds them all, and she can’t help but wonder if it’s helping or making things worse. But Percy keeps his grip tight on it, even if it’s just to have something useful to do.

She listens hard for anything. _Anything_. But all she hears are the footsteps and quiet breaths of her friends, and her own blood rushing in her ears. She hears the shifting of Pike’s armor and the occasional soft tap of Keyleth’s staff against the floor. Grog sighs and Scanlan sniffs and Vax is completely silent and none of it— _none_ of it—tells her anything about where they are, what they’re looking for, what’s going to happen next.

“I hate this,” Pike says. “I’m sorry, I _hate_ it.”

Grog frowns up at her, still on his shoulders, then looks down at the rest of them. “I don’t get it, we must be close to those things we heard.”

“Not necessarily,” Percy sighs. “We never found out what it was when we heard that wailing…yesterday? The day before?” He groans and drags his hands over his face. “I can’t even remember anymore.”

“These things sounded small,” Grog goes on. “I think we could take them.”

“And if there are a lot of them?” Scanlan asks.

“Then we take a lot of them,” he says. “I mean, we have to keep going no matter what. We either run into them or we don’t. What’s the point of stopping to chat about it?”

Keyleth’s been too quiet all day long. Vex desperately wants to ask her what she thinks, even if the question might come out wrong.

But when she turns to look at her, Keyleth is turned the other way. She stares down the hall behind them, not moving at all. Vex watches her, waiting for her to speak, move, do something. She doesn’t even breathe.

“The big guy’s right,” Vax says. “We should just keep going.”

And they do. They start walking again, quiet or reluctant or nervous—and none of them notice that Keyleth isn’t moving with them.

“…Keyleth?”

Keyleth turns her head just enough that Vex can see the corner of her eyes. She thinks Keyleth might have looked at her, just for a second, but then her attention is back on the hall. Ahead of them, she feels the others stop again.

“What is it?” she asks.

A long, stretching silence swallows her question. She almost thinks Keyleth didn’t hear her. Vex stares at the rigid set of her shoulders, the hard line of her jaw. She takes a half-step closer, trying to see Keyleth’s face. But when she looks at her eyes, and the curve of her brow, she can’t quite tell what she sees. Uncertainty? Fear? Sadness? Exhaustion, certainly, but…

“…Nothing,” Keyleth finally says. “I don’t think it’s anything.”

“That didn’t look like nothing,” Vax says, appearing beside Vex.

Vex continues to stare. She sees the skin on Keyleth’s arms rise in bumps, but she doesn’t shiver.

“I—I don’t know.” There’s a tremor in Keyleth’s voice, like she’s on the verge of tears. Vex swallows hard. “I don’t. I thought…maybe, it sounded like…whispering? But…”

She shakes herself. Her hand comes up to her elbow, then her upper arm as she tries to rub some warmth into her own skin. After another long moment, she turns back to the group.

“It’s probably a draft. Or…I’m just hearing things.”

“You’re sure?” Vax asks.

“Yeah.” Keyleth swallows. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Vax’s voice is thick with patience, kindness. Vex can almost watch Keyleth shrink away from it. “Let’s…we can just keep moving. Alright?”

Keyleth nods. Vex catches her eyes dart back down the hall.

Vax lingers for a moment, but the others have turned away. He follows them, slipping back to the front of the group again.

But Vex stays. She keeps walking—after watching to make sure Keyleth is moving with them, too—but she lingers a step behind the others. She wants Keyleth to catch up to her, or maybe she should just be brave enough to fall back beside Keyleth. She wants to offer Keyleth her cloak so she doesn’t look so cold. She wants to ask about what she really heard. She wants to tell Keyleth she’d believe whatever she thought she noticed. She wants to—

The howls sound again. There are more of them this time, and they’re clearer. Or closer.

Vex feels a chill shoot up her spine. Her hand flies to her quiver and she spins around. She sees Keyleth do the same, her staff out in front of her. Vex opens her mouth to cry out—

A pair of beady eyes appear in front of Keyleth, and then Vex sees the outline of something on all fours, leaping toward them. Her cry of warning gets caught in her throat as another, two more, five more of these things come sprinting from the shadows.

The first one knocks into Keyleth before Vex has a chance to loose her arrow. She bares her teeth and looks for a target that isn’t tangled up with Keyleth. She turns in time to see one of the creatures snapping at her waist.

Vex stumbles back, letting her arrow fly. It’s too close—it glances harmlessly off the thing’s shoulder—but she does get a good look at it. For a moment she thinks it’s another of the massive rats they cleared out earlier, but this thing is even larger. She takes in the wide face—a cat?—and hears another shrill howl from further down the tunnel. A hound?

It snarls at her, head low, teeth and eyes and whiskers glinting in the light of the torch that now reaches it. Vex sees dark, matted fur, pointed ears lying flat against its head, and agile legs and claws. Behind it, a long, hairless tail whips back and forth.

She jumps to the side as it lunges again. She feels a claw swipe through her shirt, but it’s easy enough to shake the sting off. She needs to back up. She needs room to shoot, she—

A dagger flies past her, landing in the shoulder of one of the creatures facing Keyleth. She’s got two on her, backing her up against the wall, but she snarls and raises her arm. Vex feels a charge in the air, and a bolt of lightning streaks from the top of the tunnel down into one of the hounds.

She hears clanking behind her, and then Pike is there, shield raised, throwing forward a burst of bright white flames. They sail past Vex, past Keyleth, and into the face of another hound. The flames crackle and surround it for just a moment before fading again, and in the brief flash of light Vex catches three more pairs of eyes.

She scrambles back, nocking an arrow again. Scanlan is shouting something. Percy’s gun rings out. Grog bellows and runs forward, axe high above his head. He knocks one down, and Percy’s second shot takes another, but they’re quickly replaced by more.

The hounds circle Grog, darting around his legs and underneath his swings. They soon flank him. Another stalks toward Pike, towering over her. Vex hears Keyleth cry out.

“Bad news!” Scanlan shouts. “There’s a lot of them!”

“We can take ‘em!” Grog calls back. He swings his axe again and a hound yelps and crumbles under the blow. But the one behind him lashes out, teeth digging into Grog’s calf.

He bellows and spins around. The hound tears away, blood dripping from its mouth. It lets out a shrill howl, and the hall fills with responding cries. Vex winces, resisting the urge to cover her ears.

Two more hounds move toward Grog—one going for his leg while the other leaps at his chest—and Vex watches with horror as his knee buckles.

“Grog!”

Grog yells, cutting through the howls. He pushes back to his feet, knocking the hounds away, but they catch themselves and continue to surround him.

Lightning flashes again, and Vex looks over to see Keyleth stumbling back, cradling her bleeding arm to her chest.

Another gunshot rings out. Percy curses.

“I can’t get a clean shot, we need to fall back!”

Vex tries once more to back away from the hound in front of her. It lashes out, teeth snapping shut inches from her skin. She shoots—and misses again.

“I’m with Percy!” she shouts back. “They’re too close!”

“Fine by me!” Scanlan calls.

Vex grabs Pike’s shoulder and starts pulling her back toward the group. “Keyleth, Grog, come on!”

Grog raises his axe and swings wide, cutting through the hounds in front of him. A series of yelps ring out and a few back up, giving him room to start moving backward to the group.

“Keyleth!” Vax shouts. “Can you wall them in?”

Keyleth shakes her head. A hound leaps at her, but she catches it with the side of her staff and shoves it away. In the brief moment she has to breathe, she raises her staff and cracks it against the ground. Thunder crashes through the hall, and the hounds around her—and some of the ones chasing Grog—are shoved back.

Keyleth stumbles toward the group, shoving her hair out of her face. “That’s the best I can do, I’m sorry!”

Vex shakes her head and beckons her forward. Keyleth doesn’t react, just keeps running toward the group. Grog lingers until everyone is behind him, and then he, too, retreats down the hall with them.

“We still have no idea where this leads!” Scanlan points out as they take off.

Vax looks over his shoulder at him. “No better way to find out, I suppose.”

More howls rise through the hall, bouncing off the stone walls until Vex can barely hear the pounding of their feet as they run. She risks a glance over her shoulder just in time to see another hound leap and land on Grog’s back. He bellows and twists, knocking it away before it can do much damage, but it doesn’t take long for the hound to get back up and keep running toward them.

“We can’t outrun them,” Pike says, looking up at Vex. Beside them, Keyleth skids to a stop and turns back.

“Keyleth!”

She ignores Vex and runs until she’s beside Grog. The charge of her lightning fades, and then there is wind erupting from her hands, rushing back to the pack pursuing them. The howls cut off. Vex hears nails scrambling against stone. Keyleth’s hair flies around her. She lowers her arms and takes a small step back. The wind continues to blow against the hounds, forcing them back.

But a few have dug in and are still making their way forward. Vex darts back and grabs Keyleth’s arm.

“Come _on_!”

She spins Keyleth around and drags her back into a run. They make it two steps before Keyleth jerks away from her and runs on her own, hardly looking back at Vex.

Fine. Whatever. As long as she’s still running.

Keyleth bought them time, but the hounds aren’t falling as far behind as they should be. And from the sounds of those howls, still echoing through the hall, Vex isn’t convinced the entire pack is following them.

She hears Vax swear from up ahead, and her attention turns from Keyleth to him. He points down the hall, where the path splits in two directions.

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me,” Vex mutters. Now? _Now_ there’s a fork in the road?

But as they get closer, she sees glowing eyes and bared teeth appearing in the right hand path.

Vex yanks an arrow from her quiver and gets ready to shoot, but the new hounds don’t attack. They just stand there in the shadows, heads low, growling.

“Left!” Vax calls out, and the group swerves as they get close. Vex looks over her shoulder when she turns. As soon as Grog rounds the corner, the hounds from the right jump into the fray, pursuing them down the hall.

Her stomach sinks. She grips her bow tighter. This isn’t an ambush, it’s—

“Keep moving, Vex!” Grog calls, pushing her forward. She stumbles back into a sprint.

Ahead, Keyleth glances over her shoulder and their eyes meet. Vex sees the same dark realization in her eyes. They’re being herded, and they both know it.

Pike stumbles a step, and Grog scoops her up without breaking stride. She climbs onto his shoulders and stays there, clinging to him.

“Are you hurt?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Kay.” Pike twists around instead and fires a spell back toward the hounds. There’s a cry and a yelp, but the sound of the pack doesn’t get any quieter. “Shit.”

Scanlan stumbles a step, cursing, and a stone skitters down the hall away from them. Vex glances down and sees a crack in the floor, then another. There’s a patch of rough stone where the polished floor has completely fallen apart.

“We have to figure something out, fast,” Percy calls. “We can’t outrun them forever, and if they’re driving us away from—”

“Up ahead!” shouts Vax. There’s an opening in front of him, where the tunnel widens—no, opens into another cavern. Vex sees natural walls and craggy ceilings. For a wild moment, she almost thinks they’ve been driven back to where they started.

But as they run into the chamber, she realizes it’s different. It’s smaller than any of the caverns they’ve seen so far, and the old lanterns along the walls are actually lit. There’s a column in the center where two thick formations protrude from the floor and ceiling, meeting in the middle. More pillars of rock jut out around the chamber, and Vex quickly scans the room, waiting for something to jump out from around a corner.

“Look out!”

Vex spins around as the hounds burst from the tunnel. They immediately split, trying to circle the group. Vex backs up to the nearest stalagmite and fires once, twice, three times. Off to the side, she sees Vax step into the shadows and vanish. Grog barrels around the rock she’s standing against, also disappearing from view.

Scanlan voice cuts through the chaos, and Vex sees purple light glowing in another corner of the room. The blast of Percy’s gun echoes through the chamber. Pike cries out.

Something white and silver glitters in the corner of her vision. Vex turns her head and sees Pike stumbling back, holding her arm. Blood trickles through her fingers and she looks up, horror filling her eyes.

Another gunshot. Pike leaps to the side, rolling clumsily to her feet in front of Vex.

“Look out!” she cries. “Perc—”

Percy appears around the corner of the rock. His eyes are hard, mouth drawn thin. He swings his arm around, shifting his aim from Pike to Vex.

“What—”

“Look _out_!” Pike grabs her and yanks her down just in time for the shot to go over her head.

“We’ve got more company!” yells Vax.

Vex catches the glint of a knife flying through the air. She follows it up to the ceiling of the cavern, where something dark and vaguely humanoid lingers in the shadows.

She sees the creature wince and spin around. The dagger fades to shadow and disappears from its side, so it looks down at Vex and Pike instead. Vex sees a chiseled jaw and handsome features, golden eyes and dark hair. She sees deep red, leathery wings curl around him—whatever he is.

His lips curl into a smile that makes her skin crawl. The creature winks at Vex before retreating around the side of a stalactite, disappearing from view.

“What the—”

She cuts off as she hears Grog bellowing. He appears around the corner, beside Percy, and raises his axe.

“Grog, don’t!”

He swings down, and Vex winces, but the axe doesn’t come down on Percy. It leaves Grog’s grip, flying toward her and Pike.

Pike raises her shield in front of both of them. The force of the hit knocks her back into Vex.

“Grog!” she screams over the top of the shield. Grog yanks on the chain, drawing the axe back to him.

“Pike, are you okay?”

“Yeah—how do we stop them?”

Before Vex can respond, a purple, spectral hand flies past them. It smacks into Grog, but he just shakes off the force of the blow and starts looking for the source.

“Well, that didn’t work,” Scanlan says somewhere behind them.

“Split up,” Vex tells Pike, pulling her to her feet. “Try to get out of Percy’s sight.”

“Got it.”

They run off. Vex darts around the opposite side of the rock. She can hear the heavy falls of Grog’s footsteps chasing after her.

“Vex!” she hears Vax call.

“I’ve got this, focus on the thing that charmed him!”

She doesn’t look to see if he listens. There’s another rock formation ahead of her, short enough she thinks she can climb onto it. If she can get up there, out of Grog’s reach…

She runs for it. Behind her, she can hear Grog curse.

“Vex! Get back here!”

Her name sounds wrong now, coming from him. She ignores it and leaps onto the rock. It takes her a second to scramble up and get her footing, but she makes it. When she looks back, she’s ten feet above the ground—just out of Grog’s reach.

Which is good, because he’s only a few steps behind her. He bares his teeth and hooks his axe onto his chain once more, swinging it behind his head. Vex dives to the side as it comes flying toward her. It crashes into the wall behind her instead, lodging deep into a crack in the stone.

“You little—” Grog tugs on the chain, growling when it doesn’t budge. “ _Fine._ ”

He starts climbing the rock. Vex pulls an arrow and aims at him.

“Stay back, Grog.”

He ignores her. Vex sets her jaw and lets go of the bowstring. The arrow lodges in his shoulder. Grog pauses, blinks, then reaches up and yanks it out of his body. The arrow snaps in his grip. He glares up at her and keeps climbing. Vex quickly draws another arrow.

He’s at the top faster than she expects. When he pulls on the chain again, the axe comes free and returns to his grip.

Vex curses. She lowers her bow and takes a running jump off the rock instead. Grog shouts her name again. She feels the ground shake as he lands behind her.

The battle echoes around the cavern. She sees Vax appear long enough to throw a dagger at Grog and another at the winged man hiding in the ceiling. Both hit, but Grog just gives an angry roar and the creature just disappears again.

Flames ignite somewhere near the wall beside Vex, and the pained howls that follow let her know Keyleth’s up and fighting. Another gunshot rings out, and she looks around desperately for Pike.

She sees her—barreling toward Percy. Vex nearly skids to a halt, her heart jumping into her throat. But Pike ducks beneath his next shot and reaches him. She grabs his gun and shoves his arm to the side. Percy reels back, but Pike stays in his space. She lifts her foot and stamps down on his toes.

Percy hollers and stumbles. Then he falls still. His mouth hangs open. He shakes his head and looks down at Pike.

“I…”

“You good?”

“I’m so sorry, Pike, I don’t know what…” He trails off, a shadow crossing over his face.

Pike takes his gun hand in both of hers. “You’re okay now. Just…we need you, okay?”

Percy sets his jaw. He pulls away from her and holsters his pistol. “Where’s the fucking bastard.”

Pike points up. Vex follows her hand to the ceiling, where the creature is glaring down at them. But then its face shifts into a grin.

“You don’t want to play, darling?” he purrs at Percy. “Fine. How about you then, dear?”

It extends a hand to Pike and murmurs something—in Abyssal. Vex calls out a warning as Pike freezes.

But Pike just shakes her head and glares up at the creature. “Fuck off, asshole.”

She lifts her mace and shoots a burst of light toward him. Percy pulls Bad News out and takes his own shot. The creature snarls and darts back into the ceiling.

“Vex, look out!”

She has enough time to register that it’s Keyleth calling out to her this time, and then Grog’s axe comes crashing down beside her. Vex cries out and ducks out of the way of his second swing. She looks over her shoulder. Grog lifts his axe and advances calmly, a demented, delighted blood lust lighting up his features.

Vex makes up her mind at the last second. She plants herself and faces him. She fires, watching it graze across his side. But he doesn’t even flinch, and he doesn’t shake off the charm like Percy did.

“Grog!” she shouts, even as he looms over her, axe at the ready. “Grog, you’re not yourself, please—”

The axe slams into her, digging into her shoulder and sending her crashing into a pillar of rock beside her. She catches herself and shakily pushes herself upright. She can feel blood pouring down her arm. She grips her shoulder, hissing at the burn, and tries to back away from him. Grog grins down at her.

Vex risks another glance behind her. He’s backed her against the stone. She’d have to climb to get out of his reach, and one pulse of pain through her arm tells her that’s just not an option. There’s nowhere to hide. She doesn’t think she can dart around him without taking another hit.

So she swallows hard and reaches for an arrow. He’s too close for a clean shot. Her arm burns, shaking too much to draw back with the strength she wants. When she lets the arrow fly, it glances off his shoulder with barely a scratch.

Grog huffs out a laugh. His hands shift over the handle of his axe. Vex pulls a second arrow, but her arm gives out as soon as she tries to draw it back. The arrow falls from her fingers and to the floor.

“Grog—”

“Vex!”

A flash of light and red hair appears behind Grog—and then on top of him. Vex shakes herself and blinks up at Keyleth just as she lands on Grog’s shoulders. Her palms glow with green, vibrant light as she presses them to Grog’s temples. Vex watches her eyes brighten as she pours energy into him.

Grog jerks and roars. Keyleth bares her teeth and holds his head in place. “C’mon, Grog— _wake up_!”

“Get off me you—” Grog freezes. His mouth hangs open. Then he looks up. “Keyleth?”

She jumps off his shoulders and lands lightly beside him. “Feel better?”

His grin reappears. Vex can’t help but flinch, but Grog just lifts his axe and turns to rush back to the center of the chamber. “Where’s that little fucker—”

Keyleth glances at Vex. “You okay?”

She reaches out, more magic swirling around her hand, but Vex nods sharply and steps out of her reach.

“You couldn’t have done that a little sooner?”

She watches the hurt—and the guilt—cross Keyleth’s face. “I was a little preoccupied.”

Vex already regrets her words, but she doesn’t take them back. She just brushes past Keyleth and follows Grog back toward the middle of the chamber. She regrets it even more when she notices the bloody tears in Keyleth’s dress—and then again when her arm throbs as she nocks her next arrow.

But, as always, it’s a problem for another time. Vex pushes her feelings—and the pain—aside and looks for the next thing to shoot.

She scans the ceiling, hoping to find the stupid handsome demon. She sees the dark curve of a wing and lifts her bow to aim. But when she fires, it’s not a man who looks down at her. Instead it’s a woman, with deep red hair and an alluring smile. She grins at Vex and swoops down from the shadows to land in front of her.

“ _Hello, darling_.”

It takes Vex a second to realize she said it in Abyssal. She stumbles back, drawing her dagger, but the woman just chuckles. Her fangs catch the low light as she ducks and leaps into the air again. Vex feels a rush of wind as she beats her wings and soars above her. Too late, she thinks to lash out with her dagger. She hits nothing but empty air.

Vax appears at her side. “Saw we got Grog back. You okay?”

“Fine. There are two of them.”

“Shit.” Vax scans the ceilings. “Incubus. Or at least the guy is.”

Vex huffs as she remembers something, vaguely, from their school days. “That explains the charm spells.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Just focus on killing them before they turn any more of us.”

“You got it, sis.” He gives her a winks and darts off again before she can scowl at him.

“Percy, there!” she hears Pike call. Vex looks over and watches Percy aim Bad News again. He fires, loads, and fires again in quick succession. She sees the incubus drop from the shadows of the ceiling. He catches himself in midair, but now he’s low enough for all of them to see.

“Gotcha,” says Grog, and suddenly his axe is flying through the air. Three daggers fly after it, and another bolt of light from Pike. Vex grits her teeth hard and pushes through the pain to draw an arrow back and fire.

She’s not sure what gets him, but the incubus tenses in midair. His wings curl in around his torso and he falls to the ground. He crashes against the stone and lies still.

A shriek rings out from above Vex. Throughout the cavern, howls rise to accompany it—though noticeably less than before. Still, when she looks up at the succubus, she feels a chill settle across her skin. The fiend slinks further into the shadows.

Keyleth runs forward. She reaches out, and a vine shoots from the top of a stalagmite toward the succubus. It wraps around her waist and yanks her down. The succubus growls and flies with the momentum, landing in Keyleth’s face.

Keyleth reaches out. Dark green magic seeps down her arm, through her fingers, and pulses into the succubus. The blight darts across her red skin, turning her veins black.

The succubus bares her teeth. She jerks with the spell, but doesn’t pull away. Instead, she grabs Keyleth by the hand and pulls her closer. Her other hand comes up to pull at Keyleth’s hair. She leans into her ear.

Vex can only see Keyleth’s face. She watches her eyes widen, sees her mouth go slack. Something shifts. One of the hounds howls, making all the hair on Vex’s arms stand on end.

Vax appears beside Vex and starts running toward her. The succubus leaps into the air again, and Keyleth makes no move to stop her.

“No…”

Keyleth looks directly at Vax, then at her. Fury flashes in her eyes.

She doesn’t have time to react. Bright light gathers in Keyleth’s hands, then shoots out in a beam toward Vax and Vex. She throws her arms up to shield her eyes, but it doesn’t matter. Heat and light and energy wash over her, burning her skin and making the cut from Grog’s axe _throb._

Vex feels it fade, but when she lowers her arms and looks at Keyleth again, she can’t see anything. No Keyleth, no Vax in front of her—no cavern at all. Vex blinks, rubs at her eyes, but it doesn’t help.

“Vex?” she hears Vax call, and she knows, suddenly, he can’t see either. Terror catches in her throat, growing even colder when she hears Pike call out a warning.

A hand grabs her wrist. She jerks from it, but the grip tightens.

“Stop,” says Scanlan. “Get over here.”

She stumbles blindly after him as he pulls her to the side. They stop a few feet away, where Scanlan places her hand against a rock so she can steady herself.

“You good?”

A few seconds pass, and the darkness blotting her vision starts to fade. She blinks hard, rubs at her eyes again.

“I think so.”

She’s not. Everything aches. Her arm hurts so bad even the thought of reaching for an arrow makes her wince. And the thought of aiming that arrow at Keyleth?

But she can see again, so she meets Scanlan’s eyes and nods. “Yeah, I’m good. What now?”

“Pike doesn’t have the spells to restore her. We need to either kill that thing or knock some sense into her.”

Vex nods. Keyleth’s smart. She’ll shake it off. They can do this, they can—

She hears Percy’s hoarse cry—and then hears it cut off. She and Scanlan look at each other before turning and running back toward the fight.

Percy rounds one of the stalagmites and falls against it, breathing hard. He looks over at Vex and Scanlan, shaking his head.

“Two shots from Bad News, and I couldn’t reach her.”

Vex peers around the rock. Keyleth is currently darting out of Grog’s reach, a feral grin twisting her features as she moves around him. She brings her arms up, and Vex sees that same light flash brighter once more.

The sunbeam blasts against Grog. He ducks his head and digs his heels in, taking the damage. When it passes, he stands tall again and swings at her. The axe slashes across her torso, forcing her back a step, but Keyleth doesn’t stop glaring or baring her teeth at him.

“Where’s the succubus?” Vex asks. Percy shakes his head. She looks at Scanlan, who just shrugs.

“She keeps hiding.”

A dark giggle comes from the ceiling above them. Vex pulls an arrow and shoots without looking, but it just snaps against one of the stalactites.

“Fuck this place,” she mutters.

Ahead of them, Vax appears from around a corner.

“Kiki!”

She spins toward him, that awful smile still curling across her lips.

“Come on, Keyleth, I know you can snap out of this!”

Keyleth starts walking toward him. Vax raises a dagger, aimed to throw. He almost turns away from her as he lets it fly. The blade grazes Keyleth’s shoulders, but she doesn’t so much as wince. Vax’s face falls.

“Kiki…”

She raises her arms, the sunlight glowing brighter in her palm. Vax raises another dagger, but he freezes, just standing there with it held above his head.

Vex feels the breath rush out of her. Vax won’t throw it—he _can’t_ —and Keyleth knows it. She grins and throws her spell at him.

Vax leaps out of the way. He hits the ground and rolls, shielding his eyes. But when he looks up, he’s looking at some space to the side of Keyleth. Vex watches him blink desperately.

Keyleth advances on him. Vex pulls an arrow from her quiver and runs out.

“ _Keyleth_!”

She turns and Vex fires. She aims for it to graze her arm, but the pain flares and her hand jerks and it lodges solidly in her shoulder instead. Keyleth staggers and cries out. Their eyes lock.

Her expression doesn’t change.

Vex wants to sob. She wants to turn and run. Instead, all she can do is stand there as Keyleth pulls out the arrow and starts moving toward her.

“Don’t do this,” she whispers, and her voice wavers so much it sounds like a plea. She doesn’t care. The others are too far away to hear—and really, does it matter anymore? “ _Please,_ Keyleth. You’re better than this, I know you are.”

But it’s not enough, or maybe it’s too late. Keyleth darts over—faster than usual, faster than she should be—and suddenly she’s directly in front of Vex, staring her down. Vex stands her ground and glares up at her. She knows, logically, that Keyleth has always been taller than her. But she’s never really felt it before now.

Keyleth reaches out. Her hand finds the base of Vex’s neck, thumb pressing into her jugular while her fingers splay out across her collarbone. Her palm is only a couple inches off from pressing against Vex’s heart. Vex gasps, even before the spell hits.

Dark magic shoots from Keyleth’s hand and into her. She feels it flood her veins, across her shoulder and up her neck. She can hear her pulse in her ears. She can feel Keyleth’s fingers tense against her skin. Distantly, she hears Grog shout and Pike cry out, but they could be miles away for all she knows. All she sees is Keyleth.

There are tears in Keyleth’s eyes, even as they burn with fury at Vex. But that fury—it’s all Keyleth. This is _Keyleth._ It’s not some twisted form of her, Vex realizes. She is as familiar as she was an hour ago, a week ago—as familiar as the day Vex realized she loved her.

And her anger is familiar, too. If it weren’t for the succubus watching them all from the ceiling, this could simply be Keyleth digging her heels in and refusing to partake in their latest questionable scheme.

Vex feels her knees shake and buckle. Keyleth follows her down, hand pressing harder against her throat.

“You said you needed my spells,” she whispers, and it’s almost a question, almost a plea. But it’s also bitter and angry and Vex knows—feels it with a certainty that makes her blood run cold—that she deserves to hear her own words finally flung back at her. She knows it, and it’s clear now that Keyleth knows it, too.

Vex spares a single thought for how it might look to everyone else, and then she pushes her fear and pride away and grabs Keyleth by the face and pulls her closer. She holds her so their foreheads are nearly touching and tightens her grip when Keyleth tries to jerk away.

“Stop,” she begs. “Stop this, Keyleth, _please._ We need you to snap out of this. _I_ need you—”

A gunshot echoes through the cavern, and she cuts off, wincing at the sound. Vex pulls away and looks Keyleth over, but she isn’t holding any fresh wounds. She’s just glaring at Vex, darker and sadder than Vex has ever seen her.

“Vex, above you!”

Vex looks up—her hands still cupping Keyleth’s face—just in time to see the succubus soaring down toward her. She screws her eyes shut as the succubus collides with them. She feels claws dig into her skin and wings beat through the air around them. And then it’s gone, darting back into the shadows with a shriek as Percy’s gun fires again.

Keyleth shoves herself to her feet before Vex can get her bearings again. She darts off, leaving Vex trembling on the stone floor.

Vax runs up to her. “Get up, get up. Are you okay?”

Vex lets him drag her to her feet. She shakes her head, unable to respond, let alone try to lie. “Where is she?”

He doesn’t have to ask which one, but he doesn’t have an answer, either. “She flew off again. She’s letting Keyleth do all her work for her.”

Pike appears on the far side of the cavern, close to Keyleth, and shoots another spell at her. It’s small, Vex knows, but Keyleth still stumbles with the hit. She turns to Pike and raises her arms.

“We need to kill that thing,” Vex says, still leaning on Vax. “Or else we’re going to end up killing Keyleth.”

His grip tightens on her, but he doesn’t say anything. They both watch Keyleth start to throw a spell at Pike, but Scanlan jumps out from behind her and plays a little tune. Keyleth’s magic fizzles and fades from her hands. She spins around as Scanlan ducks back behind a rock.

Keyleth starts after him, but she staggers when another gunshot rings through the cavern. She grips her side and turns in time for Percy’s next shot to hit her in the chest.

“No.” It’s barely a whisper—she’s not even sure Vax can hear. Vex watches as Keyleth stumbles and hits her knees. They’re going to lose her. Right here, right now, they’re going to lose Keyleth, and the last real thing she said to her is going to be some awful remark about not helping Grog fast enough—

Out of the corner of her eye, Vex sees a stone fall from the ceiling. She doesn’t think. She hardly even aims. She just spins and pulls an arrow back and fires.

The succubus screeches. Vax spins with Vex, pulling out daggers, but the fiend swoops down toward them, dodging them.

She flies over Vex and Vax, crossing the chamber and landing next to Keyleth instead. She stumbles a little as she hits the ground. Vex sees a tear in one of her wings, and a bloody cut on one leg. But that doesn’t stop her from kneeling on the ground beside Keyleth, grabbing her face, and kissing her.

Vex’s breath hitches. She can no longer feel Vax against her. She can’t see Pike or Scanlan or hear Percy and Grog behind her. There is only Keyleth.

Keyleth closing her eyes and sagging, crumbling into the succubus’s arms. Keyleth’s veins darkening and pulsing with a dark, painful energy that she doesn’t even seem to feel. Keyleth still holding onto the succubus, even as it breaks off with a terrible, hissing laugh.

She pecks Keyleth on the lips once more and gives her a pat on the cheek. Keyleth’s eyes flutter open. She sways. The succubus climbs to her feet and flies away again, and without her support Keyleth crumbles. She catches herself on her hands and knees.

For one horrible, endless moment, Vex waits for Keyleth to collapse. She’s so pale against the dark floor, and her arms shake so hard she’s sure to fall any second.

Grog appears beside her, running up with his axe over his head. Vex blinks, and suddenly the rest of the cavern comes into focus again.

“No—Grog, wait!”

Somehow, it works. Grog stops just as he reaches Keyleth’s side. His axe still hovers in the air, ready to swing down at her.

Vex knows—knows with absolute and sickening certainty—that Keyleth won’t be able to take the hit. Grog will strike her down and she will fall, still under that _monster’s_ influence. And then what would happen? She’s desperate to never find out.

Keyleth hasn’t moved. Slowly, Grog lets his arms fall. He holds the axe at his side, cautiously still, but not prepped to swing. His face softens and he takes a small, hesitant step forward.

“Keyleth…?”

Keyleth looks up. Grog stumbles back, raising his axe again—

The cavern ignites in a rush of heat and flame. Vex and Vax leap away from each other, trying to dive to safety. She hears the others cry out just as the searing pain hits her. Vex bites back her own scream. She can smell burning skin and hair. She curls up, waiting for the flames to subside or take her over completely.

It fades, eventually, though the roaring in her ears takes longer to disappear. Vex pushes herself up enough to look around desperately for her friends. Vax looks untouched, but he’s the only one. Percy is pushing himself to his feet. Grog is up but breathing hard, still stumbling back from Keyleth. Beyond him, Pike runs toward Scanlan, who looks one bad hit away from collapsing.

And in the middle of them all is Keyleth. Slowly, leaning heavily on her staff, she pushes herself to her feet. Her breaths come in ragged gasps, rattling through her frame. But she lifts her head and looks around, glaring at each of them in turn.

Vex hears another faint, hissing laugh.

“Vax! Percy!” She already has two arrows nocked. She ignores the pain in her arm, the way her entire body shakes like it’s about to give out, and she fires. The others must see, because she hears Percy shoot and sees Vax’s dagger flash through the air.

Her arrows fly true, both sinking into the outline of a body she can barely see. A shriek pierces through the cavern—and this time, there are no howls accompanying it.

The succubus crumbles and falls. She catches herself just before she hits the ground and hovers above the stone, spinning to bare her teeth at Vex.

Grog bellows and sprints toward her. He brings the axe down across her back, tearing through the joint of a wing. The succubus arches and screams. She twists in midair, reaching back to slice at Grog, but his second swing comes down before she can get another hit in. There’s an awful, garbled cry, and then she collapses, landing on the ground in a heap.

Grog hits her again, then once more for good measure, but Vex is no longer watching. She doesn’t need to. She knows the thing is dead as soon as she looks at Keyleth.

Keyleth’s legs give out and she collapses to the floor. Her staff falls, echoing in the sudden silence as it clatters against the stone. Vex hears a weak, quiet cry and then—nothing.

Pike helps Scanlan stand, warm magic swirling around her hands. Then she leaves him and starts limping toward Keyleth. When she gets there, she kneels down, a healing spell already glowing in fingers as she reaches for Keyleth’s shoulder.

Keyleth knocks her hand away without looking up. Behind her, Grog lifts his axe again, but Pike waves him off.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Keyleth says. Then, barely more than a whisper, “Just…don’t.”

Pike looks at her, hand still hovering above her body. But she eventually retreats and pushes herself to her feet again. She starts toward Vex instead.

“Come here,” she whispers as she gets close. Vex stays still, her eyes never leaving Keyleth, though she murmurs a quiet thank you as Pike pours magic into her.

The others start moving around, talking quietly. There are healing spells and tired groans and awkward, halting pauses as everyone puts off asking what happens next.

“Well,” Scanlan starts eventually. “That sucked. What now?”

“Rest,” Vax says quietly. Vex finally tears her gaze from Keyleth to look at him, but he’s just staring at Keyleth, too. “I think we all need rest.”

“Food,” says Grog. “And a fire. And…ale. We need ale.”

“Sure, big guy.”

Grog grunts an affirmation and lumbers off. Pike hops up and moves with him. Vax ignores them both and walks over to Keyleth.

If she notices him approach, she doesn’t show it. Vax kneels beside her and reaches out, but when he touches her shoulder she shakes him off.

“Keyl—”

“ _Stop,_ Vax.”

He pulls his hand back. For a moment he just lingers there, hovering above her. Then he shifts to sit cross-legged beside her. He bends forward and says something too quiet for the rest of them to hear. Vex averts her eyes, though she can’t help but glance at them in her peripheral.

Whatever Vax says must not work, because Keyleth shakes her head. After a moment she moves, half-shifting, half-falling until she can almost sit up. But she keeps her head turned down, her hair a curtain between herself and Vax.

He sighs, says something else, then pushes himself to his feet. As he stands he looks around at the rest of them. His eyes meet Vex’s, and she has to look away.

“We should make sure this place is safe,” Percy says softly, and Vex realizes he’s beside her. She starts and blinks, but he’s right. They need a comfortable place to sit, and a fire because it’s still too damn cold. And they need to know nothing else is going to come to tear them apart while their guard is down.

“I’ll do a lap,” she tells him. “Will you help with the fire? And Percy—” Vex drops her voice so only he will hear. “Don’t—Keyleth—”

Thankfully, he nods. His eyes soften and he glances over, then back at Vex. “We’ll let her rest.”

“Thank you, dear.”

Percy looks at her strangely then, like he’s found a missing part he’s been looking for, and now he just needs to figure out how to piece it all together. She ignores that and leaves before he can say anything else.

The cavern is a mess. She finds scorch marks and rubble and broken pieces of her arrows all over. There are more collapsed tunnels, and she runs her hands along the broken stone and walls to make sure they’re real. She keeps glancing up at the ceiling, waiting to see another shadowy outline staring back at her.

But she comes across nothing threatening or suspicious. By the time she’s walked around the entire cavern, her friends have lit the first faint flames of a fire. Pike kneels down next to it and blows softly, and the wood flares as more twigs light. She sits back up with a small smile.

It vanishes as she catches sight of Vex.

“Did you find anything?”

Vex shakes her head. “This place is awful, but I think we’re okay for now.”

“We should still keep an eye out,” Percy says. “I don’t trust…well, anything at the moment.”

“I’m sorry.” It comes from Keyleth. Vex turns, but she’s still halfway across the cavern. She’s moved to lean against one of the rocks. Her arms are wrapped around her knees, hugging them to her chest. She isn’t looking at any of them. “I…sorry.”

“You weren’t the only one,” Percy tells her calmly. Keyleth’s mouth twists. She continues to stare at the empty space in front of her.

Pike starts handing out food—a warmer, fuller meal than they’ve had in days—while Grog fills heavy cups with ale and passes them around.

“Kiki, come join us,” Vax pleas. He holds up the cup Grog offers him. “You need food, and healing, and _rest_.”

If it weren’t for her hair shifting back and forth, they wouldn’t even be able to see her shake her head.

Vax puts his drink down and starts to rise. Percy reaches out and grabs his arm, stopping him before he can even take a step in her direction.

“Maybe…maybe now isn’t the time.”

Vax glares. “Look, Percival. I get that you think my feelings are funny—”

“I do think they’re funny, which is why I think this isn’t the time to act on them.” Percy squeezes Vax’s arm. “Give her space. We’ll welcome her back when she wants to be here.”

Vax keeps glaring, but he lets Percy pull him back down to the ground. Vex watches Percy’s face. She focuses on his knowing eyes and the patient set of his mouth, and she uses all of her willpower to heed his words.

Slowly, conversation starts around the fire again. Vex grips her necklace and summons Trinket, grateful for the distraction he brings. She’s even more grateful when he settles down behind her, letting her lean against his side.

“Thanks, buddy,” she whispers. He twists around to lick her cheek, then settles back down.

“It goes without saying,” Percy says after a while, “but I would also like to apologize.”

Grog sniffs. “Yeah. Sorry, Vex.”

She reaches for her shoulder without thinking about it. It’s not bleeding anymore, thanks to Pike, but the cut still burns. She drops her hand.

“It’s okay, Grog. You didn’t know what you were doing.” Louder, she adds, “None of you did.”

But when she glances over, Keyleth just lifts her shoulders higher and continues to stare away from them all.

“Actually…” Percy clears his throat. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“What do you mean?” asks Pike.

“I’ve been possessed. I’ve known what it’s like to black out and only later realize what you’ve done. But…I’ve also been manipulated.” He sighs and rubs his temples. “I’ve done things I never would have done without whatever was influencing me, but…I knew what I was doing at the time. And I thought what I was doing was right.”

“Orthax,” Vex whispers.

“Yes. Exactly.”

“This was like that?”

“Yeah,” says Grog quietly. “I kept thinking, why were we attacking these things for no reason? What had gotten into you lot? But then Keyleth fixed me, and I realized those fucks had tricked me into thinking like that.”

Pike lays a hand on Percy’s arm. “What were you thinking?”

He sighs. “I thought…we were getting distracted. We were losing sight of our goals because we were trying to do things a certain way. We were being idealistic when we should be pragmatic, and I was angry at you all for letting that hold us back.” Percy gives a hoarse, humorless laugh. “Sound familiar?”

Too familiar. Vex sets her drink down and looks over at Keyleth again, but if she’s listening to the conversation, she doesn’t show it.

Vex sinks further into Trinket. He shifts to curl around her more, and she has to resist the urge to turn into him and start crying right there.

The conversation continues, though it’s even more muted than before. But eventually the crackle of the fire, the quiet tap of a fork against a plate, and the gentle voices of her friends make the cavern seem bearable again. Vex takes a deep breath and looks around at them.

Percy is pale, the shadows dark under his eyes, but he smiles as Pike speaks. Grog is on his back staring at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling with deep, even breaths. On the other side of the fire, Scanlan scoots over to sit beside Vax. He pats Vax’s leg and says something quiet, comforting. Vax nods.

Vex isn’t sure how much time passes, but it’s long enough that a sleepy quiet falls over the group. Maybe that’s why she can hear Keyleth as soon as she moves.

She sits up a little but doesn’t turn around. Vax does, staring outright at Keyleth, but the others seem to pick up on Vex’s behavior and keep going about their business.

When Keyleth reaches the fire, she circles past Trinket and Vex, past Vax, and sits beside Percy and Pike, who shift to make room for her.

Percy greets her quietly and hands her food and a water skin. Pike holds her hand out, hesitantly.

“Can I—”

“Please don’t,” Keyleth murmurs.

“Keyleth, you look half dead.”

“Good.”

Pike curls her fingers into a fist. Vex can see tears building in her eyes, shining in the light of the fire, but she lowers her hand and lets her magic fade again.

“Fine. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Keyleth doesn’t answer. Percy pushes a cup of ale toward her, though he looks a little satisfied when she ignores it.

“Scanlan,” Grog says suddenly. He’s still on his back, but he tilts his head to look across the fire. “Do you remember that time you and I got kicked out of every tavern in Stillben?”

Scanlan grins. “How can I forget?”

“I like that story. Will you tell it to the others?”

Vex is pretty sure she’s heard this story before—in fact, she’s certain of it from the moment Scanlan sits up and starts telling it. But everyone is looking at him now, not at Keyleth, so she contents herself to lean against Trinket and listen.

They don’t last long after that. Vex can still feel every ache in her body, and she knows she isn’t the only one. When Scanlan finishes, and a beat of mostly comfortable silence passes, they all start moving around by unspoken agreement.

Pike gets up to feed the fire, then wanders over to give Trinket a good scratch behind the ears.

“I can take first watch,” Vex says as everyone else starts grabbing bedrolls.

“No, you were up first this morning,” Pike tells her. Then, softer, “And you still look half-dead, too.”

“Okay, fine.” She won’t fall asleep, she knows, but she also doesn’t think she can beat Pike in an argument right now. Pike lets Trinket go, touches Vex’s shoulder, then returns to her side of the fire.

“I’ll stay up,” she says, settling back down in her spot.

“I will, too,” says Percy. “I don’t think any of us should stay up alone tonight.”

“Agreed,” Vex says softly. She watches as Keyleth drifts away from the rest of them and lays out her bedroll away from the fire.

Pike and Percy settle down beside each other, backs to the fire as they look out across the cavern. They speak quietly, no more than murmurs, and Vex imagines that’s part of why the others are all out so quickly. But even as she lies down beside Trinket and closes her eyes, she knows sleep won’t find her. Not now, not yet—not when she knows that, on the other side of the camp, Keyleth isn’t sleeping, either.

She doesn’t want to let it go. When the others are awake, and she has to try to get Keyleth alone, out of earshot, she knows she’ll lose any courage she has. She doesn’t think Percy and Pike will judge her, and she knows they won’t eavesdrop. It’s just a matter of knowing when…

Something shifts across the fire. Vex opens her eyes and sits up in time to see Keyleth walking away. She spares a glance at Pike and Percy. Percy’s staring after Keyleth like he’s deliberating, but Pike meets Vex’s eyes and gives her a small smile.

“C’mon, boy,” Vex murmurs. Trinket’s ears perk up first. He blinks awake and yawns wide. Vex pats his neck and starts after Keyleth, Trinket slowly getting to his feet and following her.

She didn’t go far, thank the gods. Vex finds her leaning against the far wall, near one of the collapsed tunnel entrances. Her eyes are closed, her lips turned down. Vex sneaks up without really meaning to, but behind her, Trinket’s paw hits a loose rock.

Keyleth’s eyes fly open. She flinches, already ducking away from Vex, but then she stops. “Oh.”

Vex nearly winces with her, but she manages to hide it. “Hey. I…thought you might want someone warm.”

Trinket moves past her to rub his head against Keyleth’s arm. She stays frozen for another moment. Then, hesitantly, she reaches up and slowly strokes her hand over his ear.

“Hi, Trink,” she breathes.

He lets out a warm, heavy sigh. Keyleth blinks, long and slow. Her shoulders fall a little and she brings both hands up to scratch Trinket’s head.

Vex needs to say something, quickly, before she loses Keyleth again. It’s not hard. It’s never hard—except for when it’s Keyleth.

“I thought you didn’t swing that way.”

It’s stupid, it’s _so_ stupid. And, okay, it’s a question she would love to have answered, but it only takes a split second for Vex to regret every word.

“…what?”

Vex ignores the heat in her cheeks and moves closer. She keeps Trinket in between them and goes to rest her hand on his shoulder. When she speaks again, she looks down at him. Mostly.

“You fell for the lady demon, dear.”

“Oh. Right.” Keyleth huffs. Her hand falls from Trinket.

“I…wasn’t being serious.” Vex looks away. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

It’s not. It’s _not._ Vex picks at a nail and looks sideways at her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to pick on you.”

“S’okay.” Keyleth opens her mouth to say something else, but whatever it is dies before she can say it. She slumps again, falling back against the rock. Trinket gives a low whine, but she doesn’t move to pet him again.

Vex stands before her, fidgeting and nervous, and it isn’t even a comfort that Keyleth doesn’t notice how awkward she feels. She sighs.

“Actually, I came here to ask you something.” She peeks at Keyleth, not quite daring to look at her fully. Keyleth’s head is turned away. But she doesn’t object, so Vex keeps talking. “Percy says he remembers everything. He can even remember the justifications he made for what he was doing.”

She doesn’t see Keyleth nod, really, but she sees the curtain of hair bob up and down. “Yeah.”

“He says he felt like he was doing the right thing, turning against us. That we were all so caught up with trying to do things a certain way, we were about to lose everything because of it.”

“That does sound like something Percy would say.” Keyleth’s voice is a whisper. “Or, an extreme version of it, at least.”

“That’s what he figures. He said it was more…manipulation, than possession.”

“I think I prefer straight possession.”

Her shoulders are high, curling in on herself. Vex still can’t see her face, but she can imagine all too well the way she must look. Guilty—she hasn’t stopped looking guilty since they killed the succubus. And hurt, and scared.

And, Vex suspects from the way she still hasn’t said more than a couple words at a time, there’s more than a hint of uncertainty.

She almost doesn’t ask. One of the biggest reasons she came over here, and she almost puts it away and lets it go. Anything to keep Keyleth from looking so— _small._ She is not small. She is not helpless. She is significant and powerful and Vex knew that even before she was on the receiving end of all her spells today.

But not saying it would be a bandage, and Keyleth deserves the whole damn cure. She has to face this. She’s seen what could happen if she doesn’t. Vex steps around Trinket, moving just a little bit closer.

“Keyleth, darling, can I ask…” She trails off, gathering her courage, trying not to falter at the sight of Keyleth tensing even further, “What do you remember thinking?”

Keyleth bows her head. Her hair catches the firelight—the only thing about her that moves.

“You know I cried my eyes out the day after you died?”

Vex stares. “What—”

“You asked about Vax. You wanted answers, and I wanted to give them to you. But when you left all I could do was just break down because I could still see you there, not moving.” Her voice wavers. “Never moving again.”

“Keyleth, I’m here. I told you that.”

Finally, Keyleth looks at her. Her hair still hides her face, casting her eyes in shadow as she whispers, “You almost weren’t.”

Vex doesn’t think she’s talking about the tomb anymore. She bites the inside of her cheek and stays quiet.

Keyleth sighs. “It wasn’t that different from Percy, I suppose. Or, I don’t know, maybe it was the exact opposite.”

“You thought we’d lost sight of our goals. That we were holding ourselves back from doing the right thing.”

“That, and…you were holding _me_ back.” She sniffs. Shifts a little. “I was afraid that…that I wouldn’t be able to do the right thing with you guys. That you would turn me away from the path that I was supposed to be on. And I thought…”

Vex waits, she really does. But when she can’t stand it anymore, she prompts, “You thought…?”

She shakes her head. Her eyes look up toward the ceiling and she blinks hard. “I don’t know if it was her, or…or some old…I kept thinking I had to do something. I had to turn against you all, before you turned against me. Because I _knew_ you were going to turn against me. It was like—like, one wrong move, and you’d all cast me out, or leave me behind. And maybe I should just leave and none of you would care, but with her there, asking me to protect her—”

“Wait, hold on, go back,” says Vex. _It was a charm,_ she tells herself. But all she can hear is Keyleth talking in the present tense. Maybe I _should_ just leave. “Keyleth, how can you think that? How can you _say_ that?”

Keyleth looks at her, and—okay, Vex knows she deserves her anger, but she doesn’t expect to see so much of it in Keyleth’s eyes.

“You’ve given me no reason not to.” Her voice is flat and hard, so unlike Keyleth that Vex can only stare blankly at her. “I mean, what am I supposed to think, really? That you all care about me no matter what? That you’d want me around, even if our paths no longer align and I couldn’t help you?”

“ _Yes._ Of _course_.”

“And what about when we robbed that house in Emon? Or that poor old woman? What about when I begged you all to keep fighting alongside the rebels in Whitestone? Or every time Percy and I argue? Who cares then? Who wants to hear what I say then? Because I get it, okay, I’m not good at expressing myself, and I know I can be naïve, but _gods,_ can one of you be in my corner at _some_ point?”

“Vax always—” Vex cuts herself off. It’s the wrong thing to say. She realizes it even before Keyleth’s shoulders fall.

“Vax does his best to keep the peace, but none of you take him seriously when he backs me up because you think it just comes from his feelings for me. And that’s another thing!”

Vex steps closer, reaching out. “Keyleth, I—”

But Keyleth is on a roll now. She jerks away from Vex’s touch, backing up along the rock. Her eyes are wild. Her hands dig into her hair, knocking her antlers crooked and pushing loose strands back to fall in a mess around her shoulders. The air around them charges with tension and emotion and maybe even magic. Vex feels her hairs stand on end.

She drops her hand and forces herself to just watch—to listen.

“No one’s _ever_ asked me how I feel about Vax! I know the others laugh behind our backs—I know you hate the very idea of it—but none of you ever _asked._ And no one ever asked why I wanted what I wanted in Westruun, or why I couldn’t stand the thought of them calling us heroes. You know Kerrek is the only one who ever talked to me, about _any of this_? A complete stranger took one look at us and reached out to me before _any_ of you did!

“And I don’t—I get it. We’ve got so much going on, even without dragons and assassins and politics. And I know I should be more confident, okay? I know I should be stronger. I know I need to be a better—just— _better._ And I’m _trying._ But you can’t sit here and look shocked that there’s a part of me that would believe this shit, when you’ve given me no reason lately not to. Do you know I almost left, back in Emon? Before the Conclave attacked? Everyone was so tense. You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t even look at me. And we were breaking into homes and taking advantage of our titles the second we earned them back, and—”

“Wait,” Vex chokes. “Wait—wait, you—what do you mean, you almost…you wanted to leave?”

“We had no idea what we were going to do next. And it felt like nothing had changed. Nothing was going to change. I…” Keyleth falters. She falls back against the rock again. “I started to think, maybe, I didn’t belong with you guys anymore.”

“Keyleth.” Vex feels the waver in her own voice and shuts up.

“It’s fine,” Keyleth says. “The dragons came, and we came up with a plan, and I stayed. It’s fine.”

“And if they hadn’t come?”

Keyleth just shrugs, but Vex feels like the world is falling out from underneath her. Losing Keyleth—watching Keyleth just _walk away—_

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I? You wouldn’t even listen to me long enough for me to tell you I don’t have feelings for Vax.”

That hits her, too, and all Vex can think of to say is, “Wait—you don’t?”

Keyleth stares at her, and Vex can’t tell if it’s anger or fear or sorrow in her eyes.

“I don’t. I’m sorry. I know you’re worried about him. I’d never want to see him hurt, either. But you can’t force me to fall for him just because that’s what you want.”

“That’s not what I want,” Vex says quickly.

“Yeah, well, you’re never really clear on that, either.” Keyleth sighs and pushes her hair back again, calmer this time. “Honestly, Vex, I don’t think there’s anything I could do to be good enough in your eyes.”

“That’s not true.” She says it too quietly. If Keyleth manages to hear, she doesn’t acknowledge it. Vex swallows hard. “Besides, why do you have to please me? It’s your life. It’s…it’s your heart.”

“If that’s really what you believe, you have a funny way of showing it.” Softer, Keyleth adds, “And I care what you think. A lot. I always will.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Vex shakes her head. “It’s not. Keyleth, please, I don’t know how to say it in a way that doesn’t sound hollow. I know it’s not enough, but I’m _sorry._ I’ve treated you terribly. And you’re right—there was nothing you could do to make me happy.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Vex stares at her. She takes in Keyleth’s downturned gaze, the shadow of a bruise on her cheek, the bloody gashes covering her body—the dark spot where Vex’s arrow landed in her shoulder. She swallows hard and forces herself to reach out, hand trembling, between them. This is a terrible idea. She doesn’t deserve forgiveness. She doesn’t deserve _Keyleth._

But when her fingers brush against Keyleth’s arm, she doesn’t pull away. Vex squeezes, gently, and dares to step closer.

“I’ve been so unfair to you,” she murmurs. “You’re right. I don’t want to see Vax hurt. And I don’t want to _be_ hurt. But I never should’ve let that come between us.”

“You know I would never hurt him, right?” Keyleth winces. “Not willingly. I—I haven’t tried to string him along, I haven’t—”

“I know.”

“Then _why_ —”

“Keyleth.” Her voice cracks, and Keyleth stops and falls still. Vex feels Keyleth’s eyes on her. She feels her shift almost imperceptibly closer, listening.

Vex shakes her head, suddenly desperate to backtrack. “I—I don’t think I could stand watching you leave us.”

A pause.

“…Oh.” Keyleth’s arm moves under her hand in a half-hearted shrug. “Well…I didn’t.”

“But you could have. We wouldn’t have seen it coming. And we would have deserved it.” _I would have deserved it,_ she doesn’t add.

“It’s in the past now,” Keyleth whispers.

Vex looks her up and down. She shifts her hand, moving up Keyleth’s arm to hover over the place where her arrow struck.

“Clearly,” she says.

Keyleth’s lips twist into a wry smile. In the half-light of the fire behind them, it’s just a little too similar to the grin she gave them when charmed. But it falters immediately, and Keyleth looks away again.

Silence looms, stretching tight between them. It threatens to ruin the conversation—or worse, end it—and Vex still isn’t sure she’s made her point. She needs Keyleth to understand. She needs to fix this.

“Keyleth, listen,” she starts. She leans into that desperation, letting it force the words from her before she can get too scared and let Keyleth walk away without hearing it. “Listen. I…I care about you.”

“Vex—”

“No, please, let me finish. I care a _lot_ about you, and I have a terrible way of showing it, and I’m sorry. I thought you would take Vax from me.”

“I know, but even if I—I mean, I would never—”

“Keyleth.”

Keyleth stops and closes her mouth. Red creeps up in her cheeks, but it’s such a relief to see her anything other than pale that Vex doesn’t even care. She nods at Vex to continue.

“I knew you wouldn’t. Okay? I know you wouldn’t do that. And deep down, I know you would never hurt him. But here’s the thing. I…I wasn’t just afraid of you taking Vax from me. I feared—I thought—Vax would take _you_ from me. And I couldn’t stand that, either.”

She pauses, sure that Keyleth will interrupt her again. Keyleth doesn’t. Vex takes a trembling breath. She shouldn’t have said it. She hates that she said it.

She keeps saying it anyway.

“But I couldn’t tell you that, and I couldn’t tell him that. So I…I let myself get angry about the rest of it. And I let myself take it out on you. Because…I don’t know. Maybe if I pushed you away, it wouldn’t hurt so much to have you near.”

Another pause. She hears Keyleth take a breath. Slowly, Vex looks up to meet her eyes. But Keyleth is just watching her. Waiting. Vex gives her a little nod.

“It hurts to be near me?”

Vex lets her hand fall from Keyleth’s shoulder. “It aches.”

“You could’ve told me.”

It almost makes her laugh. “That’s the last thing I wanted to do.” She forces herself to breathe. “So I treated you terribly. And it worked. I pushed you so far away you almost left us.”

Keyleth doesn’t say anything. She pushes off the rock and moves back toward Trinket. He leans into her touch and she wraps her arms around his neck, burying her face in his fur.

When she comes up again, her eyes are red. She takes a shaky breath and looks at Vex.

“It wasn’t entirely your fault, you know.”

Vex nods. “But it was enough. I’m sorry, Keyleth. I really am.”

Keyleth looks down. She runs her fingers through Trinket’s fur. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry I tried to kill all of you today.”

“That one’s definitely not your fault.”

She sighs. “No. Those thoughts came from somewhere. And it wouldn’t have happened without the succubus, and maybe it wouldn’t have been as easy if it weren’t for everything else, but they were still my thoughts.”

Vex feels her throat close again. She swallows hard and lets out a breath, long and quivering. She moves toward Trinket, too, and trails her hand over the top of his head. He gives a shake and ducks, and she lets her fingers slide back toward Keyleth’s.

“You really do look dead on your feet,” she whispers. Keyleth lets out a wet, trembling laugh. Then she sniffs. Her hand flips underneath Vex’s, fingers curling to hold onto her.

“Vex?”

“Yeah?”

“What happens in the morning?”

Vex meets her gaze. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to do our best to make it okay.”

She nods. Vex watches her jaw clench and her lip tremble. And then she’s crumbling against Trinket, and Vex is moving around him to get to her. She takes Keyleth and eases her down until they’re both on the ground, Keyleth half in her lap, and she holds her close as Keyleth shakes and cries. Trinket lowers himself to lay beside them, giving them both something warm and soft to lean against.

That’s how they stay for a long, long time. Vex holds Keyleth until Keyleth’s cries turn to gasps and then to deeper, more even breaths. She holds her until her own tears start to dry on her cheeks, and then she holds her a little longer.

She would keep them there the rest of the night, but after a while they both hear the gentle rattle of Pike’s armor. Keyleth raises her head. Vex loosens her grip enough to let her move, but she doesn’t let her go. Not unless Keyleth starts to pull away.

She doesn’t.

“You two,” Pike says once she gets close, “need to _sleep_.”

“Sorry, Pike,” Keyleth mumbles.

Pike softens immediately. “It’s okay. I’m not actually mad. Just…please come back to the fire. And _please_ let me help you stop bleeding.”

Vex looks down and, for the first time, notices a dark red stain on her own shirt. She pinches the fabric and pulls it away from her skin.

Keyleth looks down, too. “Sorry,” she says again.

“Oh, just…” Pike kneels beside them. She holds her hand out, palm glowing, and this time Keyleth doesn’t pull away. Pike moves along her shoulder, down her torso, around and back up her spine.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Keyleth says eventually. “Don’t tap yourself out just because of me.”

“It’s the end of the day, I’ll spend my spells how I please. _And_ I’m going to bed after this, like a _reasonable_ person.” But Pike gives Keyleth a smile and squeezes her hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks, Pike.”

Pike hugs her, turns and kisses Vex’s cheek, then pushes herself to her feet again. “Now, I mean it, you two. Sleep.”

Keyleth actually chuckles. She untangles herself from Vex and the two of them pull each other to their feet. As they stand, Keyleth’s hands tighten around hers, though she ducks her head.

“Vex…do you promise?”

Vex lets go of one hand to cup Keyleth’s face. “Darling. Look at me.”

Keyleth meets her eyes.

“I promise. Okay? I _promise._ ”

Keyleth nods, blinking back fresh tears. “Okay.”

Slowly, still trembling and sore, they follow Pike back to their circle of friends. Percy is still up and sitting beside the fire, but he pushes himself to his feet as they come into the light. He gives Vex a nod and walks up to Keyleth. Tentatively, he reaches out and wraps an arm around her. It only takes a moment for her to sigh and relax into it.

“M’okay.”

“You always are,” he says quietly. “Doesn’t mean I don’t worry. Or that I shouldn’t worry more.”

Keyleth smiles and sniffs, leaning further into him. He rubs her arm and kisses her temple.

“Now I suggest getting some sleep, before Pike yells at you again.”

Keyleth’s laugh is shaky, but she nods and stands on her own again. She lets him go and shifts her weight into Vex.

Vex doesn’t think about it until they’re already lying down. She just eases both of them down onto her bedroll, making sure Keyleth is tucked comfortably between herself and Trinket. Keyleth must not think anything of it, either—or perhaps she’s simply content not to say anything. Either way, that’s how they settle down: facing each other, close enough to feel each other’s warmth.

Vex stays awake just long enough to make sure Keyleth doesn’t. As soon as Keyleth’s breathing evens out, and she’s sure she’s asleep, she closes her eyes and drifts away.

-

Vox Machina steps up to the rough opening of the cave, and for a moment all they can do is blink.

Vex winces and holds her hand up over her eyes, trying to block the sun. Beside her, Vax groans and throws his arm over his face.

“Ow,” he says. Then, “Anyway. I still think Grog should hold onto it.”

“Okay!”

“Are we sure that’s a good idea?” Percy asks.

“I meant in the bag of holding.”

“Oh.” Grog sounds crestfallen, but he brings the bag around and opens it for Vax.

Vax walks over and carefully places the artifact within the bag. “At least until we can get Gilmore to take a good look at it.”

He starts to say something else, but Vex is no longer listening. She looks over at Keyleth, who has also stopped listening. Instead, she’s walking a few feet away from the group, out of the tunnel and into the…snow.

It’s snowing.

Keyleth stops and turns in a slow circle, staring in wonder at the world around them. Fat, lazy flakes drift down around her, further covering the ground and trees. Vex steps out, too. There had been leaves on the ground when they entered this tunnel, and a few even still clinging to the trees. Now…

Keyleth laughs—a bright, breathy sound—and the others stop talking.

“Huh,” Vax says. “Would you look at that.”

Scanlan kicks at a loose pile that has blown into the cave entrance. “I hope it’s warmer when we get back to Whitestone.”

“It won’t be,” Percy tells him.

“Cheer up, Scanlan,” says Pike. “It’s gorgeous.”

He gives a small smile at that. “It is quite nice, I suppose. In that regard.”

Keyleth is still standing there. She holds her hand out so the flakes land in her palm. Her head tips back, eyes closed, her hair falling down her back.

Vex walks over to her—bending down to scoop a handful of snow along the way.

“Having fun?” she asks when she’s beside her.

“Gods.” Keyleth lifts her head again. “I missed this.”

“I know, darling.”

Keyleth glances sideways at her. “You did, too.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe. But I’m not as good at admitting those things as you are.”

“Well, at least it’s behind us now.” A tiny smile lingers at the corners of her lips. Vex can’t help but smile back.

For a moment, she’s caught there. Keyleth’s cheeks are tinged red with the cold. Her hair hangs wild around her shoulders, more vibrant than it’s been since they went underground. And her eyes are so bright—even brighter now that they’re drinking Vex in, too.

But then the snow starts to seep through her glove, biting at her skin. So Vex tilts her head and says, “You know what else is behind you, dear?”

Keyleth actually starts to glance around, confused, and it’s all the opening Vex needs to leap up and pour the snow down the back of her neck.

She shrieks, spinning out of her reach, and Vex has to dive to avoid the gust of wind that sends a mini blizzard in her direction.

It hits Grog instead, who lets out a shout and spins around. “Oh, you little—”

He bends and scoops his own pile of snow, much larger than any of the others could manage. Keyleth laughs again and dances out of the way as he hurls it.

And that’s how it starts. Pike and Grog team up and Percy throws immaculate snowballs from behind the cover of a tree and Scanlan outright cheats by summoning an unseen servant to run around their makeshift battlefield and pelt them all from behind.

At some point, Vex finds herself on the outskirts of it all. She sees Keyleth back to back with Percy, fending off the others. And then she sees Vax, leaning against a tree and watching it all.

She creeps around, scooping up another handful of snow. When she’s close enough, she chucks it at his head.

He spins around, angry—Vex’s stomach sinks—but it fades when he notices who it is. “Oh. Thought you were Scanlan’s dude.”

“I’m insulted.”

“You should be.”

The snowball hits her across the face before she even registers the fact that he’s thrown it.

“Oh, you—!” She takes off after him. He runs, grabbing more snow.

They chase each other, throwing and dodging and circling ever closer. She shapes one last snowball and gets close enough to hit him hard, but suddenly he’s in her face, grabbing her wrist before she can let it fly.

They stay locked like that, breathing hard, and Vex feels her grin fall. She watches Vax’s do the same. The snowball falls from her hand and shatters against the ground between them.

Vax shifts. He lowers her arm but twists their hands to intertwine their fingers.

“Vax—”

“Are you happy?”

“Are you?”

Vax looks at her—really looks at her. 

“I can be.” His eyes soften. “I will be.”

“I’m sorry, Vax.”

But he shakes his head. “Don’t you dare apologize for following your heart.” His hand squeezes hers, pulling her into a hug. “It’s about time you did, anyway.”

She turns her face into his shoulder and hugs him fiercely. “I love you, you know.”

“Love you, too, Stubby.”

“Get the twins!” comes Grog’s shout, followed quickly by Keyleth’s, “Watch out!”

Vex and Vax push away from each other and dive, but it doesn’t matter. Grog’s massive snowball lands where they’d been standing and explodes, spraying snow over them.

“Oh, it’s on, big guy!” Vax yells. Vex looks up in time to see him disappear behind a tree.

She hears Grog’s delighted cackle. “Get back here! Sneaky little shit—”

Vex brushes snow from her pants and looks about. Keyleth is nearly doubled over with laughter, watching Grog chase Vax. Vex sneaks up on her—

But not quite. Keyleth turns and spots her just before she can jump at her, and the two of them end up tangled and toppling. They hit the snow hard enough that Vex feels the air rush out of her lungs. It doesn’t help that she’s laughing so hard she can barely see. Beneath her, she feels Keyleth do the same.

Vex rolls off her, landing spread-eagled in the snow. She sucks in a breath and lets it out in another round of giggles. When she’s settled, she turns to her side and props her head on her hand.

Keyleth stretches out, her hair splayed across the ground. The sun shines down on them, so bright Vex can feel its warmth. The upturned snow sparkles in the light, and suddenly Vex is breathless all over again.

Keyleth’s eyes are still closed, her arms wrapped around her ribs. But her laughter eventually fades, too, and she looks over at Vex.

“What?”

Vex feels herself smile. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Fine. I was staring at you.”

It’s worth it—all of it—just to see Keyleth’s cheeks grow even redder.

“Oh.”

Vex smirks. “Keep reacting like that, darling, and the others are going to keep teasing you.”

But Keyleth just shrugs. “I think I’m okay with it. As long as they’re teasing me about something real.”

And now Vex blushes. She hopes it just looks like the cold and the exhilaration, but from the way Keyleth’s eyes soften, she suspects that isn’t the case.

Keyleth reaches her hand out. Vex does the same so their palms touch, their fingers folding together.

“I think it’s real,” she whispers. Keyleth beams.

“Yeah. I think so, too.”

“Oi!” Percy calls. “Are you two trying to catch a cold?”

“Yes!” Keyleth shouts back at him.

Percy groans. “I take it back, Vax. You were never this bad.”

“You take that back, de Rolo!”

“No, no, let’s hear him out,” says Vax.

Keyleth laughs. She sits up—hand still tangled with Vex’s—and starts pulling them to their feet. Trinket comes over and rubs against both of them with a happy rumble.

“Okay, okay.” Keyleth shakes the snow from her hair. “Find me a tree. I’ll take us home.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Run Baby Run" by the Rigs  
> 


End file.
